On this episode, we dive kilt deep into The Crossing, the 1983 debut album by Big Country. Formed in Dunfermline, Scotland, the band’s journey to this critically acclaimed album wasn’t a straight line and involved a drum machine, a member of the Jam, and a failed attempt by producer extraordinaire Chris Thomas, before Steve Lillywhite took the reigns to produce an LP that became an unabashed commercial success.
It's an album full of unusual guitar techniques and gadgetry, including the abundant uses of EBow and digital delays (relatively new guitar gadgets for the time) to emulate Celtic instruments (bagpipes in particular) and create an album of soaring anthems with a marshal beat, that embraced the band’s Celtic heritage with its music, lyrical imagery, and its overall tone.
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