Deacon Blue - The Great Western Road

The Great Western Road; Late ‘88; People Come First; Wait on Me; Ashore; Underneath the Stars; Up Hope; Turn Up Your Radio!; How We Remember It; Mid Century Modern; Curve of the Line; If I Lived on my Own
(Cooking Vinyl)


With the release of their eleventh studio album, Deacon Blue prove that the Scottish band are not resting on their laurels. While many of their peers are content to tread the nostalgic touring circuit and not write or record new material, Deacon Blue, on the contrary, continues to evolve and provide their fans with new music.

The nucleus of their sound remains the vocals of Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh, where their intertwined voices give the band such a distinctive sound.

As ever, it is Ross who has penned the majority of tracks on the album, with Gregor Philip and McIntosh contributing elsewhere.

Late ‘88 recalls the height of the band's popularity in the late eighties when they stormed the singles charts with tracks like Real Gone Kid. As Ross reminisces in the lyric, "we were running, never stopping," implying that the band's success came so quickly that they were unable to fully appreciate it.

The band always had a knack for making a pop song sound epic and grandiose with a lyric that might suggest otherwise, amplified here on People Come First, where Ross details mental health issues. “My friend walked out and never came back. I’m of every twist and turn in this life,” he sings.

Ashore builds up like a whirlwind of excitement with a guitar riff that will ring proudly around the vast arenas that the band plays in the autumn.

Turn up your radio! has already been released as a single and comes with a disco-inspired vibe helped by a string backdrop that recalls the Philadelphia sound of the late seventies.

If I Lived on My Own, a piano-driven ballad, closes the album as Ross thinks about human connection and what it means to him.

Deacon Blue might be well-travelled, but on this accomplished album, they have discovered a new horizon.