Eastworld‘s an album consisting of ten recordings of Big Country songs, which’d previously only been known to diehard fans of the band from either demos or bootlegs, but which have now been rerecorded by long-time band member Bruce Watson. It’s been a huge labour of love for him to do this as all the original versions had been recorded in dark basements or on reel-to-reel cassette tapes in small 8-track studios but, as Watson says, “Big Country is my life and I feel a responsibility to continue the story.”
Being out of the public eye for as long as they have been, it’s easy to forget just what a presence Big Country had in the 1980s, what with 17 Top 30 singles, their second album Steeltown entering the charts at No. 1 plus achieving gold and platinum status with other albums, as well as touring with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, and opening for the Stones. So, with 2026 being the fortieth anniversary of Seer, plus twenty-five years since band mainman Stuart Adamson took his own life, the intent behind Eastworld is to remind fans just what a good band Big Country were, and they’ll be touring the album in the autumn.
To my ears, however, Eastworld will be an album which’ll appeal only to people who’re already fans of Big Country and/or who are completists. If you’re not a fan of the band, but are aware of the band’s name from the 1980s, and looking to investigate them, don’t start here. There’s little of the rousing anthemic rock they performed back in the day; this is a collection of songs which, for the most part, are very ordinary. Tracks like ‘Eastworld‘ and ‘What About Peace‘ are up-tempo rockers with a buzz about them, and the slower ‘Troubled Man‘ with a female vocalist has a lovely subtle guitar break but, for the rest, there’s not much else which stands out and there’s little here to get excited about.
