by Phil Hall

Artist: Battlefield Band
Album: "Home Ground: Live from Scotland"
Year produced: 1994

This concert album, recorded from a live 1989 performance in Scotland, offers Battlefield Band at the peak of its creative powers. Mixing adrenaline-rushing energy with equal parts Celtic traditions and modern whimsy, "Home Ground: Live from Scotland" is a field of memorable musical accomplishments.

The wealth of the recording comes in the wildly exuberant renditions of the group's classic numbers: the ale-soaked playfulness of "After Hours," the mournful elegy to Thatcherite economic chaos in "Farewell Jonny Miner," the rich Scottish history embodied in "Yew Tree" and the epic "Rovin' Dies Hard" with its army of adventure-seeking Scots spanning the world in professional and emotional conquests.

Perhaps it was the magic of the live performance which brought their musical magic to full speed, because these songs never sounded so alive and jubilant; the group's studio recordings of these songs, although classic in their own right, actually feel sedate and polite in comparison. Even when the vocals are put aside for pure instrumentals, Battlefield Band literally roars with intensity: the opening number "Home Ground," with its astonishing mix of eight wildly spinning reels, leaves the listener breathless with its depth and scope.

If the album has a flaw, it comes in Battlefield Band's penchant of incorporating classic pop/rock into its Celtic line-up. Their misguided cover of "Bad Moon Rising" (paired with "The Rising Moon Reel") and the hodgepodge "Band of a Thousand Chances" (which throws in "Land of a Thousand Dances," "Let's Twist Again" and "With a Little Help from My Friends" with a wee slice of Scottish hip-hop joking into a stew with traditional Scottish selections "Mrs. Mcleod of Raasay" and The Atholl Highlanders") feels discombobulated. But Battlefield Band and its concert audience have such a jolly time with this occasional tomfoolery that it's easy to overlook these cheery mistakes.

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Celtic MP3s Music Magazine writer, Phil Hall is contributing editor for Film Threat, book editor for the New York Resident, author of "The Encyclopedia of Underground Movies" (MWP Books) and a proud child of Wales.

Labels: cd_review_2005

Posted by Marc Gunn, Monday, January 17, 2005.
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