Big Country includes: Stuart Adamson (vocals, guitar, E-bow, piano); Bruce Watson (guitar, E-bow, background vocals); Tony Butler (bass, background vocals); Mark Brzezicki (drums, percussion, background vocals).
Additional personnel: Christine Beveridge (vocals).
Producers: Big Country, Steve Lillywhite, Steve Churchyard.
Reissue producer: Bill Levenson.
Recorded in 1983. Includes liner notes by Stuart Adamson.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
In the first half of the 1980s, bands like U2 and the Waterboys hit it big with a passionate, widescreen approach that became known as “The Big Sound.” Few did it bigger than Scotland’s own Big Country, and their debut album, THE CROSSING, made them a proverbial overnight sensation. Singer Stuart Adamson (formerly of post-punk outfit the Skids) penned emotive anthems that rang out to the heavens via his and Bruce Watson’s guitars, whose trademark Celtic-tinged sound was strikingly similar to that of bagpipes.
The album’s singles, “Fields of Fire” and “In a Big Country,” were surging fist-pumpers full of feeling and inspiration, charging ahead with the propulsion of drummer Mark Brzezicki’s martial rhythms. Though the band would continue on for years (until their career was tragically ended by Adamson’s 2001 suicide), they would never match the spark of their debut, one of the key rock albums of the ’80s.

• Format: Vinyl
• Genre: Pop
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