Just like last time, this review comes to you courtesy of Gregory Spawton. I’d never heard of The Blue Nile before picking up this album, but once Gregory—a superb songwriter in his own right—praised their work, further investigation was required.
Interestingly enough—at least for this particular reviewer—The Blue Nile’s basic approach is one I’ve not historically been a fan of, a very ’80s sonic framework embracing chilly synths, pulsing electronic percussion, and hyper-crisp production. The Scottish trio—consisting of childhood friends Paul Buchanan (vocals/guitar) and Robert Bell (bass), plus Paul Joseph Moore (keyboards)—first coalesced while all three were students at the University of Glasgow. After stumbling through several early permutations, and temporarily lacking a drummer, the trio resolved to keep it that way, using drum machines in the early going, until eventually their preferred studio and touring drummer Nigel Thomas became a sort of undeclared additional member, along with their perpetual engineer Calum Malcolm.
The sound that evolved out of this approach is moody, ethereal, and sophisticated, all of which might not add up to much if not for clever arrangements that complement the focal point of the band’s sound: Paul Buchanan’s lead vocals. Chief songwriter Buchanan’s approach at the mic marries the graceful urbanity of a David Gray with the billowing emotion of a Glen Hansard, a reflexively reserved Scotsman unburdening his soul, often in sharp relief against the cool, subtly layered backdrops crafted by Bell and Moore.
Peace At Last—third of the four studio albums that the glacially-laboring band issued across a 20-year career as an active concern—opens with gentle acoustic guitar and looming synth as “Happiness” offers a sort of meditation on achieving contentment (the titular “peace at last”), and immediately wondering if it will last. The emotion Buchanan pours into the song ratchets up verse by verse, joy and anxiety fighting for the upper hand until around 3:10 they bring in a choir for a single, soaring, gorgeous chorus.
Next up, “Tomorrow Morning” offers a celebration of possibility with heavy-strummed acoustic over synth washes and a subtle rhythm section; it doesn’t make much of an impression, but that is quickly remedied. “Sentimental Man” is vintage Buchanan, a transcendently passionate performance that turns an otherwise spare song built around a lilting guitar hook into a minor opus. Here and elsewhere, there’s a bit of 
XTC-ish art-pop lurking at the fringes; the arrangements can feel deceptively simple until you really pay attention and tune into the multiple interlocking and exotic-feeling parts forming the skeleton of the song (a description that also could be shorthanded as “Gabrielesque”).
Buchanan’s vocal performance again elevates the yearning “Love Came Down,” while “Body And Soul” reminds of Kevin Gilbert and Toy Matinee as Buchanan busts into a falsetto on the chorus to put an exclamation point on this exuberant number. He's a blue-eyed soul singer, singing art-pop, a combination that, when done well, can be downright intoxicating.
Opening the second half (the track list is divided in two as if it was two sides of a vinyl LP) “Holy Love” is a rather weird little Euro-soul number with more falsetto, building from just keys and drums to add a kind of slinky R&B guitar, counterpointed by icy synth. “Family Life” is a heartfelt piano-and-strings ballad, a late-night rumination with a rather mournful aspect that feels simple and organic compared to some of the other tracks. Then “War Is Love” leads with synth and drum machine, adding bass and two different lines of keys, one gently chiming over and over as Buchanan gives urgency to the declaration that “War is love / When love wears down.”
The final pair begins with “God Bless You Kid,” a seeming ode to parenthood whose only real distinguishing mark is the little quaver in Buchanan’s voice; he’s very good at conveying vulnerability. Peace At Last closes out on a positive note with “Soon,” wherein Buchanan asserts that “Love will come soon” against slow-burning, dramatic backdrop with synth strings adding sweep in the later going.
It all adds up to an album that feels something like an anxiety fever dream, a series of songs about finding something good and then being racked by fear that you might lose it. Other writers have commented on this being somewhat of an outlier in The Blue Nile’s catalog in its relative domesticity and warmth, but it’s far from an easy ride. In characteristic fashion for the band, Peace At Last reached the Top 20 in the UK but failed to chart in the US.
Returning to the larger picture and The Blue Nile’s notable place on the scene, in addition to Gregory Spawton, Duncan Sheik and Matty Healy of The 1975 have both cited The Blue Nile as an influence. At various times in the second half of their career The Blue Nile collaborated with the likes of Annie Lennox, Rickie Lee Jones, Robbie Robertson and Peter Gabriel. But after toiling in relative obscurity through two decades and just four albums, even their breakup appeared to happen in slow motion; Moore declined to tour their fourth album High and then waited another six years to reveal to the band’s biographer that he no longer considered himself a member.
In the end, though, The Blue Nile’s aura of mystery only enhances the effect of these songs, which are beguiling and often arresting in their yin-yang balance of frosty precision in the music with billowing emotionality in the vocals. For this listener, Peace At Last was a surprising and often compelling introduction to the band; I’ll be back for more.