The Blue Nile (Album Review)

Album Review

The Blue Nile
– High


To say Glasgow’s “The Blue Nile” take their time with albums is an understatement. Considering they have been going (so I heard) as long as my brother has been alive (He was born in 1979, just for the record) so you would expect them to have a fair body of work behind them by now.

Perhaps like U2 who have released what is it 12 or 13 albums by now or other major bands / singers who you would have expected by now to have a similar amount of work.

Expect with the Blue Nile, life or indeed albums are not that predictable or for that matter that frequent. Considering like I said before, you would have expected the band to have released a fair body of work by this stage; it is almost impossible to believe that the band has only released four albums.

Yes, only four albums “A walk across the rooftops” (1983), “Hats” (1989) and one I have forgot the title to in 1995, all of their albums of ordinary life told on dark, rainy streets struck a instant nerve with me back in 1989 when everybody else was raving about Madchester and bad metal and almost over night probably changed my musical taste forever.

I have memories as a young man dancing to “Let’s go out tonight” back in 1989 with my first girlfriend in my then bedroom because it had this simple power behind it which at the time seemed like nobody else.

Fast forward 16 years ago and like me in a way, the songs haven’t changed, the music is still about the simplicities of life in the way Paul Buchanan whispers “Come Close to Me” or “Days of our lives” where they talk of an girl who lives in London.

This isn’t an album which isn’t r n b or nu metal or Indie Pop – Perhaps the album does share a fondness like artist like Scott Walker (of The Walker Brothers) or Nick Cave or The Tindersticks in the way it is an album clearly aimed for adults not children but I always tend to think The Blue Nile are The Blue Nile really.

Look at the track “Soul Boy” for example on the album, if you listen closely to it, the harmonies where you can Paul Buchanan and what I guess Robert Bell, their guitarist whisper together “No more fighting, no more dreams” – it is this amount of detail that is vital to The Blue Nile and probably explains why it takes them forever to record albums.

Take for example the finale track “Stay close to me”, which despite the fact it lasts for just over 8 minutes still feels too short, but which made me think I was 16 again dancing around in my bedroom whispering “Stay close to me”.

This truly is a excellent album.

Just buy it