Alan Reid plays keyboard for Scotland's Battlefield Band, the only original member still in the band. Dutchman Rob Van Sante plays guitar, sometimes with Battlefield, and keeps them running live as sound engineer. Under the Blue is a collection of songs and tunes, mostly original, but with traditional influences. The album is not exactly traditional, not exactly contemporary. "New Scots tunes and songs," they call it on the back cover. 

Both Reid and Van Sante sing, Reid in his familiar homey tenor and Van Sante in a more finely wired tone. The duo is not unlike Battlefield --with Reid's tenor and keyboard, and with the contemporary hooks and melodies, the duo is even more pop flavored than Battlefield. It is certainly Scottish, but, especially without the pipes, there music doesn't create that feeling that Mel Gibson in blue paint will soon be appearing with a huge claymore. Neither is there a sense of windswept moors and brooding people. Indeed it is hardly a dark album at all. 

But in their own way, a few of the songs carry dark undertones. The most interesting and enigmatic song is the first: Reid's "54 Winters." The song is about a young man who left the coal mines of Lanark to fight in Italy. After the war, he came home, never strayed too far from the pub, and told his stories with a smile for the next 54 years. Were the stories true? Reid asks. We don't know. Did he really like fighting? Was the wine and camaraderie the high point of his life? Why did he never leave home again? Why did he keep drinking so much? The song is a mystery, but the answer is on the back of the liner notes. (My dad never stopped talking about Okinawa!) 

Reid's "Covenenter" rings of the classic historical compositions of Reid and McNeil in the early days of Battlefield Band. It's a cleverly hooked tale of a man with "your sword and your Bible in your hand," who is fleeing and fighting against episcopacy. The song contains an amazing rhyme: "covenanter" and "be a martyr." But it also contains a twist, "Now the darkness is your friend." Here, midway through the album a thin thread of nonviolence emerges from the tartan. The third in this Reid-generated trilogy, the last in a set that includes Van Sante's slow tune "Elaine's Farewell To Skye," is "Across the Water." "They say that peace has broken out across the water." Indeed, and perhaps the song is not just about Ulster. 

The other tracks on the album vary in theme. Van Sante, with his Dutch-Scots accent, sings Joe Corrie's song about the psychological horrors of a life spent as a coal miner, as opposed perhaps to fighting in Italy. Another stand out is Reid's composition of the sadness of lighthouse automation, ending the difficult but more romantic occupation of lighthouse-keeper. (This made me smile because my husband helped maintain the Superior light houses just after automation ... this song could have replaced Fair Isle with Passage Island!). There's also a traditional song sung by Van Sante. "The Bold Grenadier," the vulnerability of his almost wispy voice makes the song all the more romantic. Two cute songs "Campbell's Sisters" and "A Jug Of Charlie's Wine" lighten the load with their interesting descriptions; the former is an example of Reid injecting a heavy lowland accent into the contemporary world. Reid's Cajun-tinted waltz "Atlantic Bridge" allows the listener to slumber a second. 

Under the Blue is well-conceived, performed, and produced and will provide a pleasant experience for listeners. Similar to numerous other albums, the arrangements are so competently done that they might not even be noticed. The album is not the musical powerhouse that some people expect from Scottish music, but the songs exert an influence in ways that are less flashy.

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