Track Listing

1. Happiness
2. Tomorrow Morning
3. Sentimental Man
4. Love Came Down
5. Body and Soul
6. Holy Love
7. Family Life
8. War Is Love
9. God Bless You Kid
10. Soon

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13456 in Music
• Released on: 1996-06-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Pop careerists might be excused for regarding The Blue Nile, the Scottish pop trio helmed by singer and songwriter Paul Buchanan, as suicidal: In a business where timing is all, the Nile have managed to squeeze out just three albums in 15 years, supported by only two major concert tours. Why, then, should we care about their music? The answer lies in their deeply emotional, often epic albums, which have made them darlings among a cult as noteworthy for its high-profile peer membership as for its evanescence. Buchanan is a brilliant writer and singer who can channel Sinatra's elegant aloofness and Al Green's ecstatic whisper while remaining staunchly rooted in his Scottish identity, and his songs trade in the mundane details of daily life while reaching for epic scale in their emotional settings. Peace At Last juxtaposes pop splendour and soulful grit in a unique and powerful mix that extends from their two earlier, now out-of-print classics. The trio's lustrous synthesized orchestrations and clipped, largely mid-tempo grooves give Buchanan's reveries an expansive sweep that only makes sense after you've heard it. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

You can leave your hat on
This album is nothing like Hats or Walk Across The Rooftops. Those albums were beautiful and sad but this one is uplifting, Church on Sunday music. If you haven’t heard The Blue Nile then you’re in for a treat but be prepared for Paul Buchanan’s heartbreaking vocals. You could argue this album isn’t as good as the last two but when the group spend seven years on a record then you really have to give the music time to grow on you. This album shows another side of The Blue Nile equally fantastic and lovingly made. This band is something very special and all their albums worth buying.

classic
I've gone back to this album after not listening to it for a couple of years (what was I thinking!, or forgetting!). It has aged so well, probably better than 'Walk Across The Rooftops' and I still prefer this to 'Hats'. 'Happiness' is one of most gorgeous, uplifting opening tracks ever, and really sets the tone. The album is a masterclass in, well... class. 'Tomorrow Morning' and 'Sentimental Man' are, for me, particularly soulful and make the most of their minimal string/horn arrangements. 'Family Life' has more emotional than a million chart 'hits' put together. There are maybe a couple of songs you wouldn't necessarily go back to regularly, but when they're in such splendid company, you can't help but be amazed. Hopefully, with this in it's 6th year of release, we won't have to wait too long for another Blue Nile classic.

A force of nature
I had found The Blue Nile on a sampler some years ago, bought "Hats" and a "Walk Across The Roof Tops" and kind of marked them down as "good but needs time and space to enjoy them" and filed them away at the back of the CD collection. A few years later my partner of the time bought "Peace at Last", and if there's one album that ever hit an emotional chord, it is this one.
There's not too many words that do justice to "Happiness". It is extremely uplifting and heartbreaking at the same time. But that's the beauty of this whole CD. The whole thing is like a freeze frame on someone's life. The songs lend themselves to looking at what might be, is everything going to work out for the singer?
If you have not got this in your CD collection then buy it. It forms a great reference point for what one group can achieve and allows you to compare how other artists treat the same issues. Outstanding!