''Amazing Things'' is the eighth studio album by the Scottish

Celtic rock Celtic rock is a genre of folk rock, as well as a form of Celtic fusion which incorporates Celtic music, instrumentation and themes into a rock music context. It has been extremely prolific since the early 1970s and can be seen as a key foundat ...

band

Runrig Runrig were a Scottish Celtic rock band formed on the Isle of Skye in 1973. From its inception, the band's line-up included songwriters Rory Macdonald and Calum Macdonald. The line-up during most of the 1980s and 1990s (the band's most succe ...

, released in 1993. Macdiarmid memorial 1

The cover features a close-up photo of the

Hugh MacDiarmid Christopher Murray Grieve (11 August 1892 – 9 September 1978), best known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid (), was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. He is considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish Rena ...

Memorial, near

Langholm Langholm , also known colloquially as the "Muckle Toon", is a burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, southern Scotland. Langholm lies between four hills in the valley of the River Esk in the Southern Uplands. Location and geography Langholm sits nort ...

, created by sculptor Jake Harvey.

Critical reception

The ''

Waterloo Region Record The ''Waterloo Region Record'' (formerly ''The Record'') is the daily newspaper covering Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada, including the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, as well as the surrounding area. Since December 1998, the ''Re ...

'' wrote that "Runrig is relentlessly serious, their music always skirting the edges of overkill." ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' opined that the band sounds "like a rockier version of Chris De Burgh on 'Dream Fields' and 'Move a Mountain'."

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

noted that "the folk genre that dominated their early independent albums had virtually disappeared and had been replaced by an anthemic rock sound heavily influenced by their fellow Scots countrymen Big Country and Irish band U2."

Track listing

# "Amazing Things" – 4:18 # "Wonderful" – 4:11 # "The Greatest Flame" – 5:04 # "Move a Mountain" – 5:13 # "Pòg Aon Oidhche Earraich" (A Kiss One Spring Evening) – 3:38 # "Dream Fields" – 5:54 # "Song of the Earth" – 4:52 # "Forever Eyes of Blue" – 4:09 # "Sràidean na Roinn-Eòrpa" (Streets of Europe) – 5:24 # "Canada" – 5:12 # "Àrd" (High) – 6:00 # "On the Edge" – 3:53

Personnel

*Iain Bayne – drums,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

* Malcolm Jones – guitars, banjo,

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

pipes Pipe(s), PIPE(S) or piping may refer to: Objects * Pipe (fluid conveyance), a hollow cylinder following certain dimension rules ** Piping, the use of pipes in industry * Smoking pipe ** Tobacco pipe * Half-pipe and quarter pipe, semi-circula ...

, bass guitar, backing vocals *Calum Macdonald – percussion, spoken vocals * Rory Macdonald – vocals, bass guitar,

Donnie Munro Donnie Munro (Scottish Gaelic: Donaidh Rothach /dɔnɪ rɔhəx/) (born 2 August 1953) is a Scottish musician, and former lead singer of the band Runrig. A native speaker of Scots Gaelic, much of his work is in that language. Early life Munro ...

– lead vocals * Peter Wishart – keyboards

Charts

References

{{Authority control 1993 albums Runrig albums Scottish Gaelic music