After eighteen years in the business, the majority of which were spent wandering in the wilderness, The Waterboys are back with their first album proper since ’88’s Room To Roam. Still best known for the definitive ‘Whole Of The Moon’, the track synonymous with Mike Scott’s ‘Big Music’ creation, The Waterboys soon succumbed to the raggle-taggle bug, until it seemed that the once soon-to-be-omnipotent Scott would forever reside in the ‘didn’t you used to be?’ category of popular music history…

A Rock In The Weary Land is a return to Scott’s original mid-’eighties creations, gloriously melodic and ear-gratingly raucous in parts, beautifully poetic and indulgent in lyric, all bound together with an assuredness of delivery that occasionally borders on the arrogant. This is vainglorious pop-music.

From the opener ‘Let It Happen’ with it’s spooky ‘thirties horror-movie groove, and late Beatles-esque melody, we’re back in Big Music land. Perhaps only Prince and U2 could get away with inflating pop music to this extent without guaranteeing a horrible explosion.

‘My Love Is A Rock In The Weary Land’ is a power-ballad assisted by the London Community Gospel Choir, and owing something in melody to U2’s ‘One’.

‘It’s All Gone’ is a beautifully simple ditty that proves the honesty and simplicity at the core of Scott’s work doesn’t always need the huge production job of which he seems sometimes too fond, while ‘Is She Concious?’ is a standard love song that confirms Scott’s talent for the bald lyric. The cacophonic ‘Dumbing Down The World’ might have been better left on the studio floor, but we’re soon rescued by the theatrical ‘His Word Is Not His Bond’ which kicks off with a Moby-esque sample. Indeed it seems that Scott has embraced dance music here, even including loops on some tracks.

If A Rock In The Weary Land had been The Waterboys fourth album, ie, if they had released this in 1988, my guess is that they’d now be bigger than U2.

As it is, I’m hoping that the uncompromising honesty and artistic integrity of this record doesn’t pass ‘naughties jaded punters by.

‘Cos me, I always kinda liked Mike.