It’s official – Van Morrison laughs! Two minutes into the opening title track and he cracks up with a hearty guffaw. It sets the tone for what is a superior bag of eleven fresh originals plus his makeover of a couple of classic blues tunes. At times the underlying good-time tone makes having the blues seems like it might actually be fun, although his remarkable take on ‘Saint James Infirmary’ is chilling, his voice at its most expressive as the band ruthlessly stokes its bleak atmosphere.
But such is Van’s unerring feel for his blues roots that he makes many of his own songs seem like they could have been unearthed from some hidden cache of blues gems from the early part of the last century. In the jazzy ‘The Meaning Of Loneliness’ he explores the themes of self-knowledge and solitude, name-checking Dante, Sartre, Camus and Hesse along the way. ‘Once In A Blue Moon’ is both uptempo and upbeat, and you can’t help feeling relieved that Van might be in love again. He rocks it up on the gloriously sassy Whinin’ Boy Moan’ too, with its slinky organ and sax thrusts, while ‘Stop Drinking’ is toe-tapping rockabilly, pulsing with life and with more than a hint of John Lee Hooker.
‘Little Village’ is the most obvious nod to the Van of Astral Weeks and his later meditational Celtic mysticism, with its sinewy rhythm and Van’s voice in magnificent form set against mandolin, plucked strings and a fiery sax solo to boot. In ‘Somerset’ he revisits his English pastoral phase to fine visionary effect. But with the sleazy blues of ‘Goldfish Bowl’, and the slightly more jaunty ‘Fame’, he gives his boring obsession with celebrity yet more airings, asking the question in the former “Why must I live in this goldfish bowl?” The answer is quite simple; because you need it, Van, as much as we need you.