Brothers In Arms

This is often (rightly or wrongly) considered to be Dire Straits' finest album. I personally find it hard to pick one album out as the best, with the proviso that it isn't Making Movies.

Track Listing: (The correct order)

1. So Far Away
2. Money For Nothing
3. Walk Of Life
4. Your Latest Trick
5. Why Worry
6. Ride Across The River
7. The Man's Too Strong
8. One World
9. Brothers In Arms

Published in 1985, it has some of the band's most popular tracks. This album certainly ushers in a new sound for Knopfler's band. Always blues-influenced, this album has a smoother sound, and combines a new "big sound", exemplified in Brothers in Arms, with the more pared-down and percussive elements in their sound (This combination is much in evidence in One World).

Although criticised as cheesy, Walk of Life enjoys continued popularity with listeners, and fills the transition between Money for Nothing and Your Latest Trick.

Note the change in mood at this point in the album: Suddenly the mood of the songs becomes much darker, culminating in the war criminal's lament that is The Man's Too Strong. One World and Brothers in Arms avoid the outright jollity of the beginning of the album, but express a more hopeful (and orchestral) sound. When One World kicks in with its unmistakeable energy, the listener wakes up, ready to experience Brothers in Arms. The sound of that track can best be compared to the sun rising over dawn, slowly spreading light and hope over the land.

These mist covered mountains are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands and always will be
Some day you’ll return to your valleys and your farms
And you’ll no longer burn to be brothers in arms

--Dire Straits, "Brothers in Arms"

Is Brothers in Arms a phenomenal name for a wine, or what?

Despite my wine merchant's assertion that finding this particular bottle is a trivial task, I've only ever found it in one shop (theirs) which is good for them, I suppose. Established in 1998 in Langhorne Creek, South Australia, Brothers in Arms is a family-owned winery that produces the best Shiraz/Cabernet 50/50 I've ever had and, while I'm nothing close to a wine bore, that's sayin' something. I'm not the only one who thinks so, either - Brothers in Arms No. 6 was awarded the George Mackey Trophy in 2004, an award given to Australia's best export wine out of a field of thirteen thousand. S'okay. I don't know who he is, either.

I don't think I have the necessary vocabulary to appropriately describe a wine, let alone a good one (bit like porn in that respect) but here goes: It's deep, deep red with a hint of rose at the edges. It's fruity but not too fruity, with a subtle touch of, of all things, mint. It's crisp for a red wine and only slightly bitter, and the aftertaste is aromatic and pleasant and not at all sour. I'm not sure what tannins taste like and I'm not sure I want to, but I'm sure this stuff's got tons of them. Most important though, at least to me, is the fact that I can drink a bottle of it without falling asleep. This is atypical and has endeared them to me forever.

Brothers in Arms doesn't make cheap wine, though I guess that depends on what your definition of cheap is - a bottle of the No. 6 will cost you around twenty dollars US, and while that at one point seemed like an extravagant waste of money to me it is now, for various reasons, suddenly not. It's better than yellow tail which, good as the brand may be, seems like a cop-out wine to me, and it's enormously effective. More than that, I can't say.

specifics cribbed from http://www.brothersinarms.com.au