WKW – or Bruce and Jamie Watson presents: Watson Kercheval Watson, if you want to go with the fullest possible version of the project name – released their first album Men of Steel in December 2019.
Marketing necessities aside, WKW: Watson, Kercheval, Watson is plainly speaking a collaboration between three like-minded musicians who had a desire to see what they could achieve together. It just so happens that Bruce and Jamie Watson (the two W’s) are members of the Scottish guitar-based rock band Big Country and based in Scotland, and Thomas Kercheval (the K) has been releasing his own music for over 20 years in America, often heavily inspired by Big Country which is his favourite band.
Tom and I are incidentally long-standing friends and have co-hosted a Big Country podcast since 2012, which has a small part to play in the WKW formation. For more details, check out my previous write-up on WKW and their initial 2018 EP release here.
Original cover art for the "Hands Across the Ocean" EP (2018).WKW happened to release one of the best albums of 2019. But it barely made it in.
The WKW album was made available to supporters of their pledge campaign at the end of 2019, with general digital availability on 21st December. Physical copies were made available shortly after. How to get a chance to listen, consider it, and include it fairly in end-of-year summaries with only days to go before 2020?
Fortunately, at least for me, for a change this potential problem was a non-issue. I was fortunate enough to hear these songs as they were finished over the year, and also privileged to hear most of them develop from demo form into finished product, even giving feedback on several of them along the way.
Can I be objective about an album I have followed so closely, had personal involvement with (albeit on a very superficial level), and that is created by people I consider friends? Not really. Then again, I have never aimed for objectivity in a single one of my reviews. Music is subjective, and so will my writings be. I have, however, always been honest, and nobody gets special treatment because I happen to know them. In that regard this review is very much business as usual, but some extra disclosure about where I come from is prudent this time. And there you have it.
Every album I review is judged purely by its own musical merits. This album has musical merits coming out of every pore. Seeing it moving towards completion on a song-by-song basis has been exciting, knowing how good it was going to be. Like its creators I could not wait for other people to hear this album.
With the guitar being the main instrument for all three members of WKW, you’d be correct in assuming this is an album with a lot of guitar on it, with a lot of delightfully clever parts to listen to. There is nothing pedestrian about their approach, and while they like to rock out, there is also an emotional side to them. There’s no denying that at times the music has a lot of the same qualities that initially drew me to Big Country. While that band is no longer an active recording band, it feels good that WKW dares to scratch that itch a bit with some of their material.
While some of the material on the album is new, other tracks are re-recordings that might be familiar to fans of Big Country and Bruce & Jamie’s own albums. After releasing the WKW EP in 2018, the lads wanted to keep recording songs to see if they could arrive at an album’s worth, but with Bruce and Jamie having crazy schedules with Big Country, Skids and other projects, time to write new songs was in short supply. Revisiting some older tracks was not just convenient, but became the way for them to keep going. Rather than knock off straight re-recordings, they have chased definitive versions of them. Songs were often broken apart, re-constructed and emerged as something totally new. Several of them have new parts written to make them the best they could be. The level of re-engineering is at times immense, and I honestly feel it might often have been less work for them to write something new from scratch. The results are rewarding, and ultimately suited their working styles and form of collaboration well.
A crucial part of what makes this approach work is that we’re not talking about re-recordings of In A Big Country or Look Away here. They have focused on less-heard and buried gems that needed something extra to find their final form, including just elements of songs that they wanted to build a new house for. They have dug deep, and in some cases even brought in material that wasn’t ever properly recorded – unreleased Skids songs written by Stuart Adamson, and Big Country fan favourites that were never done in the studio. Adding historical material that people know of, but has never heard, elevates the album to something far more than “just” an album of new songs.
Each of the songs on “Men of Steel” have interesting and different origins, and I will look at each of them in turn. Many thanks to Thomas Kercheval Music, who agreed to join me in this, for providing interesting insights about song origins and the recording process in the following album walk-through.
All right you misfits. Let’s light this fuse.
1. Edison’s Last Stand
The album opener is a new version of the track from Bruce and Jamie’s album Another Anthem For the Damned. The two versions sound very different, setting the norm for how the older songs on the album will be re-interpreted into something else entirely.
The Anthem version starts with a synth loop that runs through the song, with Bruce and Jamie coming in on acoustic guitars. Later, more synth effects and a bass guitar joins in. With the song being about Thomas Edison’s electrical inventions and consequent use of them, I always found it a nice touch that one of the recurring synth sounds throughout that version of the song is a “beep!” It always makes me think of an electric apparatus akin to the ones you see in the old inventor labs of crazy geniuses in movies. And maybe Edison was seen as a crazy genius in his own way? Anyway, it’s cool, and it fits! The whole song has a unique atmosphere which suits it.
The Men of Steel version is a heavier, guitar-driven song with a different vibe. At its core, the song is similar to the original. This was not a song that needed to be broken up and changed as much as some other ones, and it is easily recognisable. It is tightened up and shorter, and better for it, as the ongoing end section is the only problem I have with the original.
Tom: “It was my idea to do this song, and I thought it might work great in a heavier, rockier way. Bruce as always was willing to hear what I had in mind and then decide, so I worked up an arrangement, recorded it and sent it to Bruce and Jamie. They really liked it a lot, so we continued on with it, and they added their own vocals and guitars to it.”
The opening guitar, played by Bruce, is very nice and tasty. I like it when the opening track serves as a calling card for the album, signalling what this album is all about and what comes next without revealing all the tricks the lads have in the bag right away. The very cool Big Country-inspired lead lines played during the verses tell us that these songs are carefully constructed, and little things like that can pop up at any time.
Tom: “I played the lead lines during the verses, and they were my attempt to get that classic Big Country sound in there. Not in a “forced” way, but because it just FELT right. Originally, that part was in there from the very first verse, but Bruce suggested we leave it out of the first verse and bring it in in the second, which was a great suggestion. Bruce has a really great mind for music and arranging things, and I learned a good bit from suggestions like these.”
The song has a breakdown section with a guitar part that immediately reminded me of The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again-sounding guitars.
Tom: “Bruce is playing that Who-inspired part in the bridge, which I really love. It does give the song a more Who-like feel. That was really cool to hear when he sent it and I added it in there. I then went in and tried to add some ‘Who-like’ keyboards underneath it, and I think that section works really beautifully. And yeah, that is me screaming, lol. Anytime you hear a scream on the album, that would be me. Jamie on the other hand often comes up with lovely vocal harmonies in various areas of the song. He likes to do three-part harmonies, which I also love.”
I already touched on the lyrics of the song, which speak of Thomas Edison’s inventions. Written by Bruce, they are very picturesque and paint definite images of a town with something uneasy being afoot.
Candles burn in the darkness
Like chimney stacks over London town
While the emerald lady, she lays down
And the gaslight that flickers in 10 bells
With lines like “Keeps Edison from frying me,” the song also points directly at the grislier applications of Edison’s inventions.
Tom: “I love Bruce’s lyrics on this song. He’s said it was inspired by the idea of Edison’s inventions in the areas of electric power, and one of the first things they were used for was to kill cattle and then man (electric chair). I always love songs with unique subject matter, and this one is definitely that.“
Edison’s Last Stand ends up being one of the better tracks on an album of overall very strong offerings. It features solid performances with a lot of flair and is a solid showcase of what’s coming. The fact that it has a very different vibe to the original is really another calling card for how songs will be tackled.
Tom: “I didn’t want the song to lose its original ghostly, haunting feel, which was a danger in making it so heavy, and perhaps it did lose some of that (to be expected), but I love having two different versions to choose from, and the chorus to me is so powerful and just screamed for the ‘big guitar’ treatment.“
2. Killiecrankie
This is an old traditional song, performed by Big Country at Mandela Hall in Belfast on 25 November 1991, for a Robert Burns celebration. Sadly, only a flat-sounding TV audio recording in mono exists of this blistering performance, which quickly became a fan favourite. There was always hope that the band would record a full studio version, and they never did.
Tom: “We talked about this one early on after the EP as a song that would be great to do. Most BC fans are very familiar with the version the band did back in ’91 for a television show. Fans used to always ask the band to re-record it, and while they always seemed to agree it would be a good idea, it never happened. We wanted to finally rectify that.”
The lyrics are about a battle during the late 17th century civil war in Scotland. The song is addressed to a young soldier by a veteran. The veteran asks the young soldier why he’s all kitted out and where he has been. They are both on the side of the Covenanters, who ended up being ambushed by the Jacobites at the pass of Killiecrankie (a very narrow and steeply sided mountain pass between Blair Atholl and Pitlochry, in Perthshire, Scotland).
The Jacobites overwhelmed the Covenanters, despite being outnumbered 2 to 1, and their victory was absolute. The Jacobite leader was however mortally wounded, and with nobody capable of replacing him they were later defeated at the Battle of Dunkeld.
The song itself is set to a traditional tune assumed to be from around the time of the battle. The lyrics were altered by Robert Burns in the late 18th century into the version that is known today. There are another two known verses, presumably traditional, that are not included in the Robert Burns version.
The Big Country version embraced elements that fans were coveting at the time: the band tackling more traditional Scottish material again, Celtic melody lines played on lead guitar, and a return of sorts to the more epic-sounding material of the early days. The band was however heading in a different direction, and perhaps it simply wasn’t recorded because it didn’t quite fit into what they were doing at the time.
WKW, on the other hand, are more than happy not just to embrace all of these elements, but also turning them up to 11 on their version of the song. I always had the feeling that Big Country’s version was a tad too slow, and WKW has indeed sped up their version. This gives it much more of a “charge!” feel, which taps into the battle elements which is part of the story.
Tom: “We used the BC arrangement as the template, of course, but we added a few things to it, particularly speeding the song up a bit and adding a more ‘galloping’ old-school BC feel to the drumming. For bass, I used Tony’s parts as the foundation, of course, but tried to add some more parts of my own in different areas. We also added a lot of sonic texture to the song, like acoustic guitars and lots of harmonizing vocal parts, which is a staple throughout the album. Bruce calls this ‘a really angry, angry version,’ and I agree.”
The intro to the song is very lovely, and the added keyboard and acoustic guitar behind the lead line gives it a haunting feel not too different to the opening of Restless Natives, and it really suits the song well. It does not take long for the song to pick up pace though. After a short while the song is bursting with guitar parts. All the original lines are still there, but they are embellished, and more parts are added. It does not take long for elaborate guitar lines to start playing away alongside the vocals, sounding awesome and adding to the sense of epic drama.
Halfway through the song during a breakdown, Bruce throws in a reference to The Clash by singing “When Johnny comes marching home again, hoorah, hoorah”. This is of course the opening lines of English Civil War from Give ‘Em Enough Rope (1978). A cool Easter egg and reference to a band that all of WKW hold in high regard, and The Clash will indeed be mentioned again several times later in this text. As it turns out, the English Civil War lines fit quite well in a song about a Scottish civil war as well.
Towards the end of the song, there is a lovely section where it sounds like the song is ebbing out on a similar note to the intro – with lovely ambient keyboard, acoustic guitar and what sounds like an e-bow. Don’t be fooled though! This is setting up the equivalent of a musical jump scare, as the band has no intention of quitting just yet and jump back into another verse even fiercer than before.
Tom: “We sent this one to the BC Irish Fans to debut at their recent event in Ireland, and it was a real thrill to watch video of that song being played and seeing the reaction to it, seeing people singing along and bouncing a bit in their seats. That was the first time any of these ‘new’ songs had really been played for people, so it really gave us a jolt of excitement as we were doing all the work it took to finish everything up.”
Big Country did not write Killiecrankie, but I will still refer to WKW’s take as a Big Country cover. It builds so strongly on Big Country’s take of the song. More than anything, it is a reinterpretation of Big Country’s interpretation.
We never got a full studio version of this song from Big Country, but this delivers a song with more classic BC trademarks than BC themselves probably had it in them to put in the song at that specific time (the early 90s).
3. Seven Swords
The three songs that were included on the 2018 EP Hands Across the Ocean are all included on the album, and this is the first of them on this album. It was also the first song sketch Bruce sent over to Tom, saying “see what you can do with this,” which effectively started the collaboration.
Tom: “This was of course on the EP, but it’s been remixed and remastered here [like all the EP songs], and I think this version is a lot better as far as the sound. We redid some of the rhythm guitars, for one thing, and I also mixed them and layered them differently so they sound huge. One of my favourite moments on the whole album is when the full guitars kick in on this song right after the intro. I love the giant sound of those guitars. That’s about four or five of them layered on top of each other, each one with a unique EQ setting to make the sound more interesting overall. From the beginning, Bruce wanted a big ‘Sex Pistols’ sound to the guitars on this. I don’t think we really achieved that on the EP version, but we definitely did here.”
This song has turned out quite interesting, as it contains a mish-mash of styles to my ears. The verses I always found to be very “punk” as they chug along with a snappy start-stop rhythm part, reminding me of The Clash at times. The intro is different, starting with an almost staccato guitar riff playing by its lonesome before everybody comes in. There are even some Big Country-esque lead lines for good measure before the verses kick in.
The song changes its nature again in the choruses, where it opens up and allow for more guitar parts and lead lines. The solo is an expansion of the lead line in the intro and quite lovely, adding more Big Country breadcrumbs to the proceedings.
The title Seven Swords can refer to a number of things. In popular culture, “Seven Swords” often refers to a group of oriental warriors who most often figure in stories as protectors of a village which is under some threat. We also have the Tarot card “Seven of Swords” which shows a man sneaking away from a military camp with five swords in his arms, looking over his shoulder at two upright swords he has left behind. The card stands for betrayal, deception, getting away with something, or acting strategically. This probably has little to do with the song, which with lines like “You can work the mine or you can fire the gun; Stone set choices for the chosen ones” give the impression that it is about making hard choices. Not just choosing between the way of the warrior/soldier vs. a different life, but that too.
Tom: “What’s this song about? I’m not entirely sure. As with many early BC songs, it conjures more of a feeling than an obvious story. For me, it uses a warrior motif that shows the pain of loss but also the hope that, one day, the warriors will return, regain their pride and power, and that, one day, ‘the seven swords will dance in flame again, and cut through the darkness.’ It’s more of a folk tale that can be applied to anything, not just literal war.”
There is no doubt that this version of the song has significantly better sonics than the EP version. Apparently, a good bass mix will go a long way!
Tom: “Another thing that improves the song from the EP version is how I mixed the bass. When I did the EP, I recorded the bass in stereo, with a big stereo chorus on it that sounded great to my ears when listening to it isolated. But I always thought some of the instrumentation wasn’t standing out as much as I’d hoped, and I began to suspect the bass might be the culprit. I started reading up on bass mixing and quickly saw the comment, ‘never mix the bass in stereo, as it will eat up too much sonic space.’ And so I learned something very important, albeit frustrating. I had to go back and fix that issue on ALL the tracks from the EP. Luckily I’d saved all my original dry takes of the bass, so it wasn’t too bad, but that was a great thing to learn. As soon as I put the bass back to mono, the mix really opened up, and I could hear the other instruments much more clearly.”
4. Troubled Man
Troubled Man is the first (and only) bona fide Big Country song on the album. It used to be quite the rarity, as it was only ever included on the 12’’ single of Heart of the World (1990). No other versions of the single (7’’, 12’’ gatefold. Cassette or CD) would include it.
Big Country really hid the track quite well, and I remember struggling to locate it for years before I finally got my hands on it. It was not released again until Rarities III (2002). It has later also appeared on the Singles Collection Vol. 3 box set and the No Place Like Home Re-Presents deluxe set (2014). All of these releases are currently out of print, still making the song hard to find.
Why spend so much time pointing out the continuing scarcity of the song and its under-representation on reissues and compilations over the years? On the simplest level, because it is a stunning track. At the same time, it is clearly a very personal and brutally honest song from and about its writer, Stuart Adamson.
I am likely wrong, but personally I always had a feeling that the song was tucked away a bit for that reason. While I am always very careful not to assume that songs are autobiographical, we know enough about Stuart to know that this song very well could be (and likely was) very much about himself.
For all its obvious and immediate qualities, it is also so raw and emotional, and so tied to its creator, that it isn’t an obvious or easy track to choose. Even considering trying to re-create it is brave. As it happens, our men of steel were more than up to the task, and also fully aware of how challenging it would be.
Tom : “This was another song that Big Country fans treasured but that perhaps didn’t get the attention it deserved in the studio. The studio version, which is a b-side, is gorgeous, and the emotion in Stuart’s delivery combined with the song’s simplicity is very, very powerful. That combined with how personally connected that song now is to Stuart because of the way his life ended and the issues we now know he dealt with made this a really dangerous song to try to do a re-recording of. I personally wondered whether we should do it, but only briefly. What made me feel OK about doing it was thinking hard about how Stuart viewed his songs. I don’t think he’d have ever wanted something he wrote to become only associated with him and his life, unable to be related to by other listeners. I don’t think he’d want a song of his, however personal the reservoir from whence it came, to be locked away in some sort of sarcophagus that could never apply to any other aspect of the human condition, that would always be solely about HIM for the rest of its days. After all, I could relate completely to the lyrics. I’ve dealt with depression, as have so many others. The lyrics resonated with me in so many ways. I can’t speak for the other guys, but I thought it would actually be honouring Stuart to do our own take on this song.”
The song deserves to be heard by more people, and I always love it when less obvious choices are picked. From a quality perspective it really isn’t a bad choice, but Tom is making a good point about the reverence in which a lot of Big Country fans keep this song. The fact that it has always been hard to find over the years has perhaps even added a bit to that in some way. Now there is a version of it out there again, available to be picked up and listened to.
As much as I celebrate the choice of this song, the song itself is anything but celebratory. Without going into specifics, the lyrics paint the picture of a person who has lost his dreams in the darkest possible way.
No longer will I look
For what can never happen
No deeper can I long
For what I know is dearIf I must live my life
In darkness and in shadow
For it takes a troubled man
To know the freedom of his fear
The song is incredibly powerful and overwhelmingly sad. It also carries an intense melancholy beauty with it. The song is (at least the original version) very raw in every sense. How does one really approach a song like that?
Tom: “Our goal was to keep things very similar to the original as far as the structure, but to add to the textures where we could, and we did that in a lot of ways. There’s acoustic guitar on here that blends nicely with the electrics, there’s some keyboard-esque guitar effects that have a ghostly sound, and there’s the Mighty Organ of one Colin Berwick, which sometimes gives the song a hymn-like feel. (Colin recorded his parts in Australia, and he did a fantastic job.)”
WKW’s take of the song is respectful to the original in every sense. They have not changed the structure of the song much at all, but the arrangement is much richer. This is honestly expected, as the Big Country version really is a very naked take. That version has just the most basic instrumentation with Stuart’s lone voice at the front and centre of everything.
WKW clearly thought long and hard about how to build a lot of that same emotion instrumentally, and added a lot of fitting parts – including lovely organ sounds and backing vocals. There is a lot of emotion in a song like this, and I have always been a staunch believer that the music is just as able to convey a mood as the lyrics.
Tom: “One of the biggest differences is that there are a lot of backing vocals on our version, and there are absolutely none on the original version. We also added some bits to the arrangement to give the song a better sense of dynamics, particularly the ‘I think I’m in trouble’ section and then toward the end, where I think we made the song build very powerfully until it comes crashing down again into that beautiful and simple ending. We put a lot of big guitars into those parts, and I think that added a lot to the power and rawness of it.”
Whatever else you put in the song, the vocal is always going to be the clincher for a song like this. Stuart’s original voice on this song is so sweet, melodic, and emotional. How do you even better a vocal like that?
Bruce went into the song with one purpose: make it his own. It really is the only mindset you can have. Stuart had done his version. This would be Bruce’s version – nothing more, nothing less. To deliver something worthy of the song, he had to make it a deeply personal performance. It can’t have been easy, but he pulled it off.
I was very curious to hear Bruce’s approach, as he certainly has a different voice than Stuart. In my opinion Bruce is an amazing rock vocalist, and that kind of delivery seems to come very natural to him and always sound so cool. He can certainly do ballads and quieter material as well, even though I always felt that he needs to work a bit more on those to get “there.” Balladry seems to come not quite as naturally to him as the rock-oriented material, but he certainly gives it his all. The result is probably the rawest vocal on the album, and that is simply amazing to hear.
Tom: “For me, the best part of the song is Bruce’s vocal performance. It’s my favourite on the album. I think he sings his heart out on this, and it actually brought a tear to my eye when I was mixing it into the instrumental version. It just sounds really raw and passionate and sincere, and that is when I truly felt like it was OK for us to do this song, that we could share in its beauty, too.”
As the song moves into its end section, there is a lovely sound (I assume organ) hanging high above the rest of the instrumentation. In the playout section, it reaches quite high before lowering again and becoming a nice backdrop to everything. It almost feels like a musical comfort blanket.
Tom: “The final change made to the arrangement is that we ended the song on a minor chord, whereas the original ends on a major chord. That never quite fit the feel of the song for me, and, at least for our version, it just felt more natural to end the song on a minor chord.”
5. Nationwide
The second Stuart Adamson-penned song in a row appears! Unlike the first one, this was one of the first songs that he ever wrote for Skids back in 1977. It was part of their live set in the early days, but as more songs were written, it disappeared and was likely not even a contender for inclusion on their first album Scared To Dance (1979). An early demo exists, but is unreleased, making this the public debut of the song.
Tom: “Doing this song was Bruce’s idea, and what a great idea it was. The song was graciously lent to us by someone who has the original demo version. There’s hope that maybe that and other demos from the same sessions will see the light of day at some point, but for now, we must keep it shrouded in secrecy. Anyway, it was a real thrill to be able to hear the demo of this track and to hear this young band flailing away at their instruments with that raw, pure punk power and attitude from literally punk’s very beginning days. What wasn’t so thrilling was realizing very quickly that I could barely understand a word being sung. Surely Bruce would be able to understand? Nope. OK, no big deal. Bruce works with the guy that originally sang the song. We’ll just ask him. That of course was Richard Jobson. Bruce played the demo for Richard and asked if he could decipher the lyrics. Richard’s response? ‘FUUUUCCCCCKKKK.’ And that was it.“
Luckily, fortune will sometimes favour the desperate in their darkest hour of need. When browsing the net for any clues or hints about this song – anything! – Tom incredibly came across online scans of an old punk fanzine from 1977. It didn’t just talk about those early years of Skids, but mentioned Nationwide specifically. It also happened to print the full last verse and the chorus. You’re not often allowed to be that lucky!
Tom: “Finding that article was pretty much the mother lode. I was just searching for all sorts of things that could give me a clue as to that song, and came across that. The first couple of verses, though, still had lines that were in doubt. I had to pull out all the stops to get them figured out, so I took the demo recording and slowed it down considerably while preserving the pitch. This helped a good bit. I also enlisted the help of a few authentic Scotsmen. They helped as well, and between all that and Bruce really woodshedding it, we feel like we got the lyrics about as close as we possibly can. There may be a word or two that’s not quite right, but it’s generally on the money now. The gist of the song seemed to be inspired by the general disillusionment of young people specifically during those days, questioning authority as well as many of their peers who, in their minds, were leading pointless lives or turning into things they once hated. A sentiment that certainly wasn’t exclusive to 1977. The article also mentioned that the song was inspired by Stuart (then going under the name ‘Stevie Cologne’) getting beaten up in Edinburgh by a bunch of young thugs.”
The second verse certainly paint the picture of such an incident, even though the finished version mentions Glasgow instead of Edinburgh:
I stumbled into Glasgow
I was beaten, I was saved
I was rid of all the shite that they took from me
I did what I could, but I was bleeding hard
I never believed that I would need a sword
An out-and-out punk song in every way, stylistically it stands out from the rest of the album. It is fast and furious, relies on sheer energetic bravado over musical prowess & nuances, and just reeks of safety pins, spiky hair, and gobs. Still, the inclusion of a song like this should surprise no-one who knows the guys involved. A song like this may not sound like what any of them normally do, but it’s still very much part of their musical make-up. The Stuart connection seals the deal and is also very cool.
Tom: “With the lyrics basically sorted, we went to town on the music. We stayed very true to the arrangement of the demo, but we thought it was important to speed the song up a bit and then to improve the drums, making them more solid and powerful. Again, there are many layers of dirty, filthy guitars on this, the combination of which creates a truly nasty (in the best sense) sound.”
A very short song at 2:16, it still has the time for three verses and choruses, a section with an air raid siren, some sections highlighting the bass playing alongside the drums, and no less than two rounds of guitar solos! Those solos are particularly loud and dirty on this song.
Tom: “Jamie plays the solos here, pretty true to what Stuart played on the demo. I love the sound Jamie got on these, but especially the vibe. The solos just sound really raw and gritty. I later added a couple harmony parts to those, especially on the second go-round soloing.”
Jobbo (aka. Skids vocalist Richard Jobson) is known for being able to spew out a lot of words quickly. He is also known for being hard to understand at the best of times, and WKW’s challenge to understand the words on this song speaks for itself. This is a short song with a lot of words to fit in very quickly. And WKW even sped it up!
When all is said and done, I appreciate Bruce’s delivery on this song which is as clear as one could expect. At the same time, I am glad the digital album comes with a lyric booklet (lyrics also found on the bigcountryinfo.com website). Still, the vibe and the delivery will always be the most important thing on a song like this, and Bruce gives a wonderful performance on Nationwide. His punk credentials have always been worn on his sleeve, so I can imagine it was very cool for him to do a song like this.
Tom: “Bruce had a really tough time singing this one, but he did a fantastic job. It’s hard because there are so many words, and such limited time to come up for air. But I’ve always thought he had a Joe Strummer type voice anyway, so hearing that voice on top of this music and this song from punk’s heyday just feels right to my ears.”
Tom plays the bass on nearly all the songs on Men of Steel. The exception is this song, where a very special guest with ties to the original version of the song agreed to join in.
Tom: “One of the coolest parts of the song is the bass, specifically the bass player. Bruce got the great Bill Simpson to play bass on the track, just as he’d done on the original demo. Back then, Bill was ‘Alex Plode,’ and he decided to go by that moniker once again for this performance, which was a great jolt of nostalgia. So now I could add Bill ‘Alex Plode’ Simpson to the list of favourite musicians from favourite bands that I’ve played with, and even though Mr. Plode wouldn’t know me from Eve if he ever met me, I’m still happy about that.”
6. The River Stays the Same
The second song of the three from the Hands Across the Ocean EP is a reworking of a Bruce & Jamie track. It actually has a long history as there are quite a few incarnations of this track.
The earliest version can be found on the Portastudio Diaries demo collection (2009). Bruce and Jamie started out with a slow version of the song, with an interesting melodic bass line pushing the song onward along with brooding electric guitars and multi-tracked vocals.
It was recorded again for Another Anthem for the Damned (2010), which saw the track become acoustic (moving the prominent bass line to acoustic guitar in the process), complete with a foot-stomping percussive beat running throughout – and a whistling solo!
There is definitely something charming about this “campfire” version, but the song must still have felt like unfinished business. It was brought up and attempted again during Big Country’s early sessions for The Journey in 2012, where the arrangement would move closer to the first Portastudio version. The electric guitars are back, Tony recaptures (and adds further flourishes to) that pronounced bass line, Mark adds his trademark drums, and Mike sings and wails to good effect. On paper this should have been the best version of the song, but no. The song was still too slow, plodding more than flowing. The song did not feel quite right and would not make it into the final sessions.
When it was picked up again by WKW, that made it at least the fourth time the song was attempted by someone.
Tom: “This is a song that was clearly trying to find its place in the world. Bruce and Jamie recorded it themselves, and BC actually tried their own version for ‘The Journey’, but it didn’t make the cut. Bruce still liked the song a lot (as did I) and wanted to see if he could finally get a full-band version out there. I didn’t add anything to this one musically or lyrically, just worked on the arrangement and made a real effort to make things as heavy as possible, which of course Bruce and Jamie had in mind already. I know Bruce has mentioned that it sounds like something that could’ve come off ‘Buffalo Skinners,’ which is fine by me. This is one of Bruce’s more storytelling songs, giving little snippets of lives affected by war. I really like the lyrics of this song, especially the chorus and its very BC-esque message, which is when you get fairly depressing, hopeless lyrics encased in a mound of big anthemic guitars.”
I am glad Bruce did not give up on The River Stays the Same, as WKW have now managed to deliver a definitive and really solid version of the song. It finally has the correct pace, and the instrumentation is much more insistent and punchier than ever before. This is a song that begs to be played with some drive, and it finally has that. If I have a second favourite version, it would be the foot-stomping acoustic version from Anthem simply because it has some of the same insistence even with no electric guitars.
The song has a very nice and direct opening which is refreshing. I love a good intro, but not all songs need one, and overall this album does the right thing for all the songs. I really like the lone guitar at the very beginning, which does a sliding “wooaa”-sound right before everybody kicks in on the same note right after. Yes, it is a very tiny detail, but it’s very cool.
As usual, there are many layers in the song. Just in the first verse I hear a basic guitar riff, a sustained note, one part with a chugging start/stop echo effect, and a riff which comes in to play alongside the vocal (which in later verses turns into a twin guitar part). There is a lot going on in there, and as with every other song on this album, headphones are encouraged!
Tom: “One of my favourite parts of the song comes in the final verse when Bruce and Jamie’s ‘Waaaas’ kick in. They labelled them as ‘Russian gang vocals.’ That’s something I would’ve never thought of, but it worked so well. Those guys are really creative, all the way down to small parts like this that don’t seem that important at first, but that really add a lot to the overall vibe of the song.”
The way the song ends is just incredible. I just love the sonics of that whole section; it is just an incredible collection of sounds. I’m glad I now have a name for those incredible vocal parts – Russian gang vocals ahoy! There’s also yet another Big Country throwback hidden in the final guitar solo, and I also love that cool, percussive guitar part which stays a bit after the other parts end. This is of course the riff that has been played in all the pre-chorus bridges throughout the song, and it sounds great.
Tom: “I added a little ‘Easter Egg’ in the solo at the end, which is a riff Stuart used to play during his solos on ‘Fields of Fire.’ I like how it still fits over the chords of this song, even though they’re in a minor key. I also brought Bruce’s ‘Waaa’ down a full octave at the very end, so that it sounds even more ominous.”
7. Rose Red Sunset
The third and final song that was part of the Hands Across the Ocean EP has an interesting back story.
In early 2014 Bruce shared a number of videos on his Facebook page that he referred to as the “attic sessions,” where he would perform various pieces of music on guitar. Some would be old favourites, some were new bits.
On 4 February 2014, he posted a video called Jamie visits the attic where the two of them played a new piece that Jamie had written. It was lovely, ambient, and very expansive. It instantly struck a deep chord with Big Country fans, who felt it was similar in spirit to some of the instrumental passages in the Restless Natives soundtrack. People were clamouring for this to be developed into a complete, finished song.
About half a year later (August 2014) a new Big Country song called All Lay Down was shared on YouTube, which utilised this piece of music. I liked the song quite a bit, but I could not shake the feeling that the initial piece of music hadn’t been used to its full potential. It had been so strong and promised to be something really special, and while All Lay Down was a good song, it should have been even better based on how strong that original piece of music is.
As it turned out Bruce felt similarly, which led to that initial piece of music being brought out again when the WKW collaboration got underway. Bruce asked Tom to turn it into a new song, completely stripping out everything from All Lay Down. They wanted to go back to the basic melody and start from scratch.
Tom: “The first thing that struck me about the original instrumental is that the guitar solo Bruce played served perfectly as a vocal melody, so I began to write lyrics around that melody. I then arranged the song and contributed the ‘somebody out there’ part to the music, recorded a version with just me and my guitar and sent it to Bruce and Jamie. They really liked it, and Bruce was very complimentary about the lyrics, so that felt great. With that vote of confidence, I started building the foundation of the song as I’d done with the others, then sent that to Bruce and Jamie, who added their own parts and sent them back to me, and then we mixed it all together.”
There is no doubt that Rose Red Sunset manages to use the original starting point to better effect than All Lay Down did. The melody line of the original piece of music is front and centre, and especially letting the vocal line follow the basic melody of the piece makes all the difference. That is the melody we all fell for back in 2014, and we are falling for it all over again now in this song.
The intro of the song is really beautiful, with a lovely ambient backdrop hanging behind a haunting e-bow part and some beautiful guitar. I was really surprised when Tom told me the song had no keyboards.
Tom: “I really am personally proud of the intro. Most think that is a keyboard, but it’s really a guitar. There are in fact zero keyboards on this song. It’s an effect I stumbled on where I play a note on the guitar into some reverb, and only the reverb is audible, so it has a real ghostly, ethereal effect. I used it a lot on my EP ‘Rail,’ especially the song Sugarplum Fairy, so I was keen to use it again, as I love the way it sounds. But what really did it for me was the day Bruce sent over an email with an attachment that said ‘Ebow.’ I plugged that into the mix, and that took it to a whole new level. That was another one of those surreal moments, adding an e-bow played by Bruce to a song we all co-wrote together. Amazing moment. This seems to be a favourite among listeners based on a recent poll. We’re all really proud of the scope of this one.”
The song has several sections that stand out. Any sections containing that magical e-bow sound will raise the hairs on the back of any BC fan’s neck, and the middle section where everything else takes a bit of a step back to let the e-bow melody shine is especially lovely. The e-bow has the same role here as a classic guitar solo part, which was often the case on classic Big Country songs as well, and it really is an exquisite touch.
Other than that, there is a lot more going on in this song as it progresses than you’d think at first. For being a ballad – which it is – the song sure has a lot of dynamics in it. While the lads are good at stripping back the layers at exactly the right moments, there are quite a few instrumental tracks on here. By the end, the song has grown to include a cacophony of instruments. It works really well, as it builds up the song to reach a higher plateau which is really satisfying emotionally.
Nothing feels out of place – even the touch of the “militaristic” drum rolls that appear near the end of the song feel good, and almost becomes another Big Country Easter Egg that fans of that band will knowingly smile at.
Tom: “This song has so much going on in it, and it was a real challenge to find a good mix. We wanted to add a lot of textures to this, so there are acoustic guitars, clean guitars, even a big distorted guitar explosion toward the end. From that perspective, the structure (not comparing the songs in quality) is probably similar in places to Chance, in that it begins quietly, then builds, then more or less explodes toward the end.”
I really think Tom did a magnificent job on the lyrics of this song. There is something so inherently and utterly sad about the feelings of despair and loss that are contained in the first verse, but also something beautiful about finding a path that could lead to comfort again later in the song.
All alone, I waited for the stars to fall
The earth to swallow me up whole
Left my spirit far behind among your tears
That no false promise could consoleIn a sea of mud, I drowned my dreams
And cursed the power of their lies
And I walk the barren path of yesterdays
With memories of contented sighs
The music in this song underpin this beautifully. It is so emotional and romantic, yet tinged with sadness. It was very important for the lyrics to match that, and I am so glad they did. Huge kudos!
Tom: “The lyrics are meant to paint a picture of someone who’s been through the proverbial wringer in life, and they’re looking back longingly on a time when they didn’t need much at all to find peace and comfort. Even something as simple yet beautiful as a rose red sunset would suffice.”
Red Rose Sunset is my favourite song on the album. I am delighted that the original piece of music finally found a song that fully lives up to its potential and that it has lyrics that fit it so perfectly. This is a triumph of evocative, expansive, and romantic song writing and performances.
8. Smoulder
Just like the music used to create All Lay Down was reused to create Rose Red Sunset, this song was redone from a 2015 song called Love Is the Law. I liked that song and its quirkiness, even if it wasn’t what you’d normally expect coming from the Big Country lads.
Tom: “This song almost didn’t make the album. Bruce suggested we revisit Love Is the Law and see if there were parts we could take from it to build a new one. He felt like the original lacked energy. I went back and listened to the song many times, and that intro part struck me as very powerful as well as the ending chord progression where the song kicked into a higher gear. I took that chord progression and turned it into the verse structure of the song, and we kept that intro. Bruce really wanted it to sound like New Rose by The Damned in the beginning, and when I was working on the drums, he referred me to that to use as a guide. I added the chorus, which I wanted to be a full-bore BC, anthemic chorus in a major key. I have a thing for songs where the verse is in a minor key and the chorus breaks out into a major key. River Stays the Same is an example of that from Bruce’s end. It gives a sense of relief when that chorus hits. I remember coming up with the chorus really quickly, then I wrote lyrics. I sent it to Bruce and Jamie, and they really liked it and wanted to do it, but later Bruce got back to me and said he was a little hesitant, as that opening to Love is the Law was obviously used here, and he wasn’t sure if we should confuse the two songs, so we put it on hold. But as the project got closer and time began to be in less and less supply, Bruce went back to that one and changed his mind, so we gave it the full WKW treatment.”
The intro is easy enough to recognisable as Love Is the Law, but the rest of the song really sounds new to me. Adding a different vocal melody and various tracks of playing over the verses is enough to make the whole section into its own entity, and with a different intro it might have been anyone’s guess what song (if any) this one had been based on.
While you continually hear vocals from all three members of WKW on this album, Bruce usually handles the lead vocals. This song is the exception as Tom steps up to sing.
Tom: “Originally, Bruce wanted both Jamie and myself to sing one song on the album. This was going to be my song. With the heavy workload and the impending birth of his beautiful daughter Lola, Jamie never got around to singing lead on anything. Maybe next time, hopefully. But I was really happy to be able to sing a song, and it was very gracious of Bruce to allow that.“
Speaking of Jamie’s daughter, she makes her recording debut on this song. Initially I was not entirely sure what the opening and closing sound was. It sounded like a train driving along, which felt suitable enough – especially with the drums coming in ahead of the guitar riff, which all also contributed to that driving, forward-moving feeling. But it is no train. That sound is actually the heartbeats of the then as-of-yet unborn baby Lola. Starting and ending the song with an infant’s heartbeats fits the theme of the lyrics as well, which speak of the fire that young people bring to the world.
Tom: “There aren’t a ton of lyrics to this song, and they were written a fairly stream-of-consciousness manner. The general idea is that, even though we’re all aging, we never have to fully give up or snuff out the fire of youth. ‘Youth remains, it just got older, find its flames, where dreams still smoulder.’ It’s one of those ‘kicking against the darkness’ type of songs lyrically.”
The song kicks in very nicely with the drums and intro guitars establishing a good pace, before the verses reel it in a little bit. While there is a guitar providing riffs at the back of the verses, they have more guitars picking strings and leaving the notes hanging, or keeping sustained notes. It adds up to an interesting sound. Meanwhile, the bass line is pumping along the bottom line very satisfactorily, driving the song forward together with the drums. In subsequent verses, more layers of guitar and small lead lines are added. As always, the song builds as you move on.
The choruses have a lot more going on. I honestly can’t even make out all the parts, but it adds up to a great cacophony of guitars (and probably a few other things, too).
Tom: “As usual, I really loved the parts that Bruce and Jamie added to this, especially what I call Bruce’s ‘Freedom Song’ parts during the second verse. He played a very clean-sounding, reverb-drenched part that reminded me very much of Freedom Song, which I loved. Gave the song’s verses a more haunting vibe. He and Jamie also added great guitar crunch to the chorus, and I brought in a lead part that played throughout the chorus (a BC staple).“
The solo section is very interesting. The first part features what sounds like a violin played through a fuzzbox, along with what sounds like deep, percussive “whooo” (more “Russian gang vocals”?). It is followed by a weird and particularly noisy guitar solo, after which the song totally changes as the druids from Spinal Tap’s “Stonehenge” come out and do a folky dance for us! Seriously, the left turn into a folky, fiddle-based part is tremendously cool. It’s not what people would expect to appear at that point in the song, but it fits, and it certainly gives the song a lot more than just having even more bars of loud guitar.
Tom: “Another great idea Bruce had with this song came in the solo. The song originally had a really great solo by Jamie from the very beginning of that section. Bruce, however, said he was sort of ‘bored’ with a traditional solo at this point in the album. He wanted something else there, something with more of an ethnic flair. So, we worked through a variety of options and eventually settled on some odd-sounding fiddle part, various percussive elements and other stringed instruments, and we layered them all together. It makes the song take a huge left turn, and it really was a great idea from Bruce. Even though that part only lasts for 15-20 seconds, it’s so unexpected and really elevates the song so much. I really valued that creativity from Bruce. After that part, the second half of Jamie’s blistering solo comes in, and it works great.”
As mentioned before, I love a good outro almost as much as a good intro. When done well they can be even more satisfying, as outros are often ignored or not really thought through – how many times haven’t songs just faded out or ended quickly? So it is nice to once again on this album hear a song build into an ending that needs to get to a conclusion in a thought-out manner. As this song nears its end, we have many great layers of guitars, including lovely dual lead ones, with the really effect-laden vocals swaying back and forth between the left and right channels. All of this general mayhem ebbs out, leaving a guitar to play the percussive end riff over and over again. Simple, but very nice!
9. Lay the Coin / As Long As I See Shadows
The final song on the album is a double-decker, consisting of two songs that transition from one to the other – Lay the Coin and As Long As I See Shadows. The former is the name used to describe the full piece which includes both parts.
The first part, Lay the Coin, is an updated version of the demo track Lay the Coin On My Tongue from Bruce & Jamie’s album Portastudio Diaries (2009). It was always a favourite of mine from those early batches of songs by Bruce and Jamie, and I was glad to see it picked up again. There was something really catchy about those acoustic guitars and their percussive playing, and the chorus always struck me as really cool. As the song was already quite fleshed out, and by it having such obvious qualities, it should be easy enough to make a good and definite version of it, right? Evidently not.
Tom: “Last song on the album, and absolutely the MOST difficult song to put together. This song went through so many changes. I even had to redo it from scratch at one point as the original file got corrupted. That was a bad day. I actually convinced Bruce to make a new version of this one. He didn’t think it was anything special, but I loved the chorus and thought it was such a great hook. He agreed to give it a go, and sent me another song of his called As Long as I See Shadows. His idea was that maybe the two songs could be combined somehow in sort of a Red Fox approach, where a song suddenly changes abruptly and becomes something else entirely.”
For those who know the original demo, the new version definitely has a new sound to it. It opens with the sounds of an SOS being repeatedly sent out by Morse code, which sets an ominous tone of unease. What is going on? Why is the SOS sent out? The intro keeps that vibe going for a bit.
Two factors stand out as very effective in this regard, while also adding something new to the song: the “old-west”-style guitar lines being picked in the background, and the atmospheric organ of Colin Berwick, who returns for this final song.
Tom: “Bruce asked Colin to come back for this song, and he was more than happy to do it and provided some amazing tracks. Bruce wanted the song to also have a bit of a ‘Doors’ feel, and there is a hint of Riders On the Storm perhaps in some of the songs. The song originally was a lot heavier, with distorted guitars from the beginning, but … it just never felt quite right to any of us. I’m not a huge fan of organ, to be honest, so when Bruce made the suggestion to add it, I wasn’t sure I’d like it, but once I heard Colin’s parts and added them in, I really did. The decision was then made to give the song a ‘cleaner’ sound, and that seemed to make everything work, especially when we brought in the distorted guitars during the bridge parts. It felt more airy and open, and that seemed to work well from our perspectives.”
The lyrics from the original Lay the Coin On My Tongue are mostly intact, and while I won’t dare interpreting them too closely, it always gave me images of an cowboy or gunman in the old west who knew that the sun had set for him for the last time. The tradition of laying a coin on someone’s tongue to buy them passage into the next world (i.e. “paying the ferryman”) is not really found in the old west, but the rest of the song describes that setting.
Those original demo lyrics even go as far as describing his departure by “hitching a ride on a Manila galleon, heading to the new found land”. Those lyrics have been replaced on the WKW version of the song, and obviously with a second song added to the whole there is room to expand the story further. This is where the album touch on “the man/men of steel,” finally providing a link to the album title.
Tom: “Bruce talked about the album title he wanted around this time, which was ‘Man of Steel.’ The title was inspired by Andrew Carnegie, a Scot who hailed from Dunfermline who became one of the richest men in the world through his achievements in the steel industry, and then gave most of his fortune away to charity in his later years. Bruce was very interested in his life and how he gave his entire fortune away late in life. I thought ‘Man of Steel’ was a cool title (mainly because it had the word ‘steel’ in it), but realized that we didn’t have any lyrical references to it on the album. So I rewrote some of the verses to Lay the Coin while arranging the song, trying to work those references in there.”
Now the man of steel has finally cracked the code
Heard three short, three long, three short
He set off alone upon his ship of gold
And sunk it in a foreign port.
Tom: “Those lines refer to the aforementioned Carnegie, perhaps realizing the futility of putting one’s faith solely in riches, and of course the sinking of the ‘ship of gold’ refers to him giving away his fortune, which he did in many other countries besides Scotland.“
The transition from Lay the Coin into As Long As I See Shadows is obviously an important and huge part of this song. Lay the Coin works its way up to a grand ending with multiple parts being played and sung. The song then pauses and leaves the last note hanging. A drum starts rolling until a “The Clash”-esque guitar riff starts chugging away. A bass hums four times, as if to count the rest of the instruments in with a 1-2-3-4 (another Big Country reference? Sure, why not), and every instrument finally comes fully in. It works very well. It’s not a seamless transition, but it does not need to be. The two songs are in any case very different, so it was never going to be a case where they would flow totally naturally and unnoticeably together. They still remain very much linked as intended.
Tom: “We figured out a place to attach As Long As I See Shadows, and the bridge to the two songs was a ‘London Calling’-esque guitar part. Everyone thought it worked beautifully. It didn’t necessarily make logical sense, but it just worked. Bruce talked a lot about making this one sound something like The Stranglers would’ve done, specifically a song called Hanging Around. He mentioned this after we had a pretty solid recording of the song done, but this entailed us drastically extending the intro. We already had vocals recorded and other parts, so this was a challenge for me to literally move EVERYTHING to make room for an extended intro. We had to re-record some parts to make that work, but it finally did, and that intro might be my favourite part of the song now. It really does sound epic, and it has almost a Sergio Leone western feel to it with the great lead lines Jamie is playing there.”
As the second part of the song gets underway, things gets intense. The three verses consist of lyrics that are partially repeated, Bruce singing them with tons of reverb and effects on his voice to make it even more insistent and maybe even a bit manic.
Twelve lonely people golfing on the moon;
Taking all the pictures, singing out of tune;
There’s chimps in space with slide rules too;
As long as I see the shadows they’ll be chasing after you
The final verse replaces the reference to chimps with “men of steel.” As the song ebbs out, he keeps singing that last bit over and over again:
The Men of Steel
The Men of Steel
The Men of Steel
They’ll be chasing after you
Meanwhile, all kinds of things are going on as the song goes into a playout section before breaking down. One lone guitar survives once again, taking us out as the Morse code from the beginning reappears. But this time, the “SOS” has been replaced with the signal for “WKW.” WKW to the rescue!
Tom: “That ending section took awhile to get right, too. Bruce wanted it to sound as if it was almost coming apart at the end, for us to put as much weird stuff in there as we could. I really didn’t go THAT nuts on it, but we added delay to the vocals, Jamie added some falsetto vocals, we added guitar parts in and out and then we added a very cool Skids-like guitar part at the end while transposing the song from D-minor to D-major, which is actually my personal favourite part of the song. I just think that ending really, for lack of a better word, rocks.”
How to best sum up everything we have heard? There is so much to take away from this album. Bruce, Jamie and Tom have all put so much of themselves into it. As I mentioned initially, the main instrument of all of them is the guitar. You should expect guitars, and you shall receive guitars. This album is stuffed to the rafters with guitars – wonderful riffs, lovely solos, multiple layers, dual leads, intricate arrangements, percussive parts, guitar-created ambience, and guitars that don’t even sound like guitars. It would not surprise me if at least one of the lead vocals is a guitar, too.
That’s not to forget all the other performances – especially the choir of vocals. I am not sure I called out the backing vocals enough yet, but they are all over this album, in verses, in choruses, giving flourishes to musical bridges, and then some. This has turned out to be as important a part of the sound of WKW as anything else. As a vocal harmony aficionado, I could not have been happier with that, although some of them are a little too buried for my taste.
The artwork certainly deserves a mention too. Created by Tim Eldred, a Marvel Animation Studio artist and director, who has done an excellent job. Tim also created the art for the Hands Across the Ocean EP and I am glad he returned for the album. I love the idea of the steel-clad men in armour, showing a hard exterior while the insides are all soft and mushy. That is not a far cry from how the music within that sleeve could be described too, at times.
Men of Steel is a versatile album. We have straight rockers, pure Big Country-like moments, ballads, acoustic-based songs, folk-inspired rock, and even a bona fide punk song straight from the summer of Anarchy In the UK. What more could we want, except even more of this music?
As I said in the very first paragraph, if anyone can even remember that far back at this stage: WKW are out with their first album. I said “first album” very much on purpose, setting up a dangerous but ardent hope that it won’t be the only one. Hopefully this album is received well enough that another one might materialise. The guys are still exchanging ideas back and forth, so we can afford to be hopeful.
Simply put: this project is far too good to stop now. I hope the guys know this and are aware of how appreciated their music and this album is.
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