The Blue Nile - Peace at Last - Vinyl LP

2019 reissue

https://pennyblackmusic.co.uk/Home/Details?id=21962. :

But it was not all quite as picture-perfect as that. Record label Virgin, keen to capitalise on the success of 'Hats', were pushing for a quick follow-up, and the band were collectively suffering from a bout of what could loosely described as writer's block. What fragments the band had, they were not happy with anyway. 

With the band not fulfilling their contractual obligations they were dumped by Virgin and took up with Warner Bros. Then there was the question of just where to record the follow-up to 'Hats'. Their previous albums had been recorded at Castlesound near Edinburgh, but the band were determined to find somewhere new and had a little money in their back pocket from the Warners deal. The question was where. And so the search began, including places like Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Venice but nowhere seemed to fit.

It does some rather appropriate for a band that has only produced four albums since it was formed in 1981 that it took them almost seven years to bring out a successor to their commercially most successful album, with 'Peace At Last' eventually seeing the light of day in June 1996.

The album marked something of a departure for the band as 'Peace At Last' marked a move away from synthesizers (although not entirely) to more focus on the guitars. Perhaps this was due, in part, as the album was recorded in various locations in Paris, Dublin and LA, and it is easier to transport a guitar rather than a stack of electronic equipment. As such the album, although still cohesive, has something of an itinerant feel to it. Although far from disjointed and scrappy, it does not quite fit together as with previous albums. Still, the band's high-quality standards are very much intact, and Buchanan's song-writing ability is as strong as ever.

While 'Peace At Last ' may be the one Blue Nile album that gets rather overlooked, it does contain some real gems that stand as some of the band's finest and display their perfectionist song writing craft.

The real stand out though is the heartbreaking 'Family Life' - a stripped down, haunting desolate song comprising, largely, just piano and Buchanan's mournful and stark lyrics:

"Just separate chairs in separate rooms;
Jesus, please, make us happy sometimes."

Elsewhere the band introduce a wilder musical palate to their blueprint with touches of gospel and country splashed across the album mixed in with their lovelorn songs and hopes of salvation and redemption.