Track Listing

1. Alba
2. Cutter
3. Hearts Of Olden Glory
4. Pride Of The Summer
5. Worker For The Wind
6. Rocket To The Moon
7. Only Rose
8. Protect And Survive
9. Our Earth Was Once Green
10. An Ubhal As Airde

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14494 in Music
• Released on: 1990-07-01
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
If you are Scottish and don't already own this album, shame on you. Buy it immediately. Other nationalities: you may need some further persuasion. But that's easy enough. The Cutter And The Clan is chock full of big-hearted tunes, beefy arrangements and potent singalong choruses. The lyrics burst with such Scottish pride that the rest of us begin to feel a little jealous, and every track has a great hook, guaranteed. Non-Scots: play "Pride of the Summer" and try to avoid bellowing along to "Beat the drum / Beat the drum / Like a heartbeat / Lonely and strong"; or listen in silence to the chorus of "Hearts of Olden Glory." It can't be done. Even the two gaelic songs--including the classic anthem "Alba"--are irresistibly catchy. Call it folk rock if you like--Runrig count accordion, mandolin and bagpipes among their arsenal of instrumentation--but there are no traditional tunes on this album and Runrig's way with their music is the stuff of 20,000-seater stadiums not quiet country pubs. --Mark Walker

Customer Reviews

Gaelic pride, and hearts of olden glory!
Following on from the pretty much home-produced "Recovery" and "Heartland" albums, "The Cutter and the Clan" was a full-frontal assault on the growing folk-rock market of the 1980s, and remains probably the edgiest of the band's numerous albums. Gaelic pride is writ largely across the album from the opening bars of "Alba", but this is much more than a nationalist rock-out - the band have a global social conscience as well, never more powerfully expressed than in the brilliant protest anthem "Protect and Survive". Much of the album reflects on the experiences of the Scottish emigrants to Nova Scotia in the 18th and 19th centuries, and how the heritage of their descendants mingles with the heritage of modern Scotland, making this a sublime storytelling album as well as one of the best pieces of raw folk-rock ever recorded. There are gentler moments too, in the sublime "Worker for the Wind" and "Hearts of Olden Glory" - a sort of nostalgic look at the past, with a yearning for the future to be better.

Great songs, shame about the production
This is one of the earliest Runrig albums I bought, and in fairness it contains some of their strongest songs. Unfortunately the production is about the weakest of all of the albums I own. In the more upbeat numbers it has plenty of energy, bordering on being raucous, but the quieter ones are drowned in unnecessary wispy atmospheric effects and reverb. The songs are strong enough to be listened to without all the additional distractions added to them. It's a great shame, but the album is stil worth buying anyway. I prefer "Heartland" and "The Big Wheel". Their best album still has to be the live "Once in a lifetime".

One of the best Runrig Albums
A great collection of songs from Alba - a all time classic, to the slower A worker for the wind. Absolutely brilliant.