Many of those who love Scott Walker owe their affection to his more "dark", claustrophobic period, a judgment, or rather attitude and inclination, that I can somewhat agree with, since "The Drift" (2006) can indeed be considered the most accomplished album in terms of atmospheres and rhythms, skillfully pared down, according to a minimalism that gives strength to the voice and words of the artist, dubbed as British though he’s American.
However, I find that a mere, albeit plausible distinction between a "first" and a "second" Walker risks creating a misleading narrative, suggesting an artist limited to pop first and inclined towards experimentation later. In reality, his entire career, on a first, second, or tenth listen (for the die-hard fans), emerges as an undeniable manifestation of avant-garde elements.
From the first four LPs as a solo artist (thus excluding works with the Walker Brothers, a band of fictional brothers where covers prevailed), which are marked progressively with a number but are essentially eponymous, to his latest projects functioning as OST ("The Childhood of a Leader", 2016, and "Vox Lux", 2018), Noel Scott Engel immerses his content in a heterogeneous solution, containing accessible elements on one side, and elusive, challenging ones on the other, in more or less equal measures. Initially, the former prevails over the latter, giving the impression of dealing with products designed to be consumed primarily, due to a historical period where the contamination between symphonic and pop, exemplified by Phil Spector's technical innovations, is brought to market to create a sensation, through polished hybridizations between light music and classical. Furthermore, Walker, well integrated into the reference context, draws much inspiration from Broadway musicals and especially from the French chanson of Jacques Brel and Leo Ferré, two eminent chanteurs who blend authorship with a format good for the market. Another important composer in this regard, at least as a melody writer, is Burt Bacharach.

Already starting from the final chapter of the tetralogy of "Scott", "4", which is the subject of this review, the artist's intentions become more adventurous, the cultural background of the man Walker enriches, and the tools available at the conceptual level increase. Artistic maturation materializes substantially at this point in the journey: it is 1969, and the 26-year-old from Hamilton, Ohio, based in London, records at the Olympic Studios in the English capital the tracks that will form the new fully self-written LP. No more covers, only songs written by his own hand. He decides to sign everything with his birth name, Scott Engel, and this is the main reason many will attribute as the origin of the singer's surprising commercial failure, who until then had been constantly favored by media fortune: "Scott 4" does not climb the sales charts, remains low for some time, and then is completely ousted.
Whether the flop is influenced more by formal reasons (different name, and total authorship of the material) or more complex sonic/lyrical elements matters little. Everything about "Scott 4" speaks volumes about the sincerity and creative intelligence of its author. A masterpiece without "ifs" and "buts", contrary to the previous releases, which, although presenting artistically dignified and often moving material, lack conceptual coherence and a certain weight in authorship and melody, "4" perfectly combines instrumentation belonging to the orchestral tradition, acoustic instruments and/or related to rock, and rhythmic setup.
The sound continues to be baroque, but of a baroque stripped of many of its embellishments: at times the fairy-tale effect, surviving the subtractive work, inserts itself into some grooves and makes one smile, but the various pieces of the instrumental puzzle, more often, fit alchemically, creating a disorienting effect, and marry seamlessly with the otherworldly crooning of Engel/Walker. Of the ten pieces that make up the album's tracklist, at least three or four are untouchable, others are sophisticated and impeccable at a melodic level, and the few remaining, probably less inspired, are still appreciable.

The first four compositions, in my opinion, are the pieces of an ideal medley: "The Seventh Seal", a synthetic story, in song form, of the plot of the eponymous film by Ingmar Bergman, twelve years earlier, and a sound sketch opened by Morriconian trumpets reminiscent of the contemporary Fabrizio De André (the one from "Tutti morimmo a stento", released the previous year); "On Your Own Again", where Scott paints conflicting emotions within a brief and intense minute (and forty-eight seconds); "The World’s Strongest Man", a tender love song, a great demonstration of humility of a man bending under the weight of his own feelings ("And didn’t you know that I’m not the world’s strongest man?/When it comes to you and your world, I’m lost"), concluding with the first exemplum of the scat vocal improvisations that are a hallmark of the artist; "Angels of Ashes", a true poem set to music, a concentration of suggestions that develop, verse by verse, like an aedic song, with words full of sweetness, spirituality, and subtle irony. To close the A-side of the vinyl, "Boy Child", a composition with a symphonic breath, in a Western key, merging with Eastern chimes: only in this fragment can the crooning appear cloying, not effectively combining with the moods of the orchestra.
The same discourse for the first side applies to the second. Here too, the first four "movements" tell a single little big story on a plane of conceptual panoramas: "Hero of the War", a pleasant anti-militarist divertissement (an apparent oxymoron!), supported by a guitar and percussions imitating a galloping pace; "The Old Man’s Back Again", a monumental song, presenting a bass line (provided by Herbie Flowers, the same behind those foundational in "Space Oddity" by Bowie, a great admirer of Walker, and "Walk on the Wild Side" by Reedian) among the most powerful and vibrant ever heard, a chorus akin to an embrace (thanks to Walker's vocal cords, but also to the accompanying Gregorian-choir style) and an unheard-of intensity text, subtitled "Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime", referencing the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia (verses like "And Andrei V. he cries, with eyes that ring like chimes/His anti-worlds go spinning through his head/He burns them in his dreams/For half-awake, they may as well be dead", but especially stanzas like "I see a soldier, he’s standing in the rain/For him there’s no old man to walk behind/Devoured by his pain/Bewildered by the faces who pass him by/He’d

Tracklist Lyrics and Videos

01   The Seventh Seal (04:57)

Anybody seen a knight pass this way
I saw him playing chess with Death yesterday
His crusade was a search for God and they say
It's been a along way to carry on

Anybody hear of plague in this town
The town I've left behind was burned to the ground
A young girl on a stake her face framed in flames cried
I'm not a witch God knows my name

The knight he watched with fear
He needed to know
He ran where he might feel God's breath
And in the misty church
He knelt to confess
The face within the booth was Mr. Death

My life's a vain pursuit of meaningless smiles
Why can't God touch me with a sign
Perhaps there's no one there answered the booth
And Death hid within his cloak and smiled

This morning I played chess with Death said the knight
We played that he might grant me time
My bishop and my knight will shatter his flanks
And still I might feel God's heart in mine

And through confession's grille Death's laughter was heard
The knight cried No you've cheated me!
But still I'll find a way
We'll meet once again and once again
Continue to play

They met within the woods the knight his squire and friends
And Death said now the game shall end
The final move was made
The knight hung his head
And said you've won I've nothing left to play

The minstrel filled with visions sang to his love
To look against the stormy sky
The knight his squire and friends
Their hands held as one
Solemnly danced toward the dawn

His hourglass in his hand his scythe by his side
The master Death he leads them on
The rain will wash away the tears from their faces
And as the thunder cracked they were gone

02   On Your Own Again (01:48)

03   The World's Strongest Man (02:21)

04   Angels of Ashes (04:21)

The Angels of Ashes
will give back your passions
Again and again

Their light shafts
will reach through the darkness
and touch you my friend

They'll fly in a mind dance
and blind you with wings
wrapped in flame

If you're down to an echo
they just might remember
your name

In the unbroken darkness
where emptiness empties
alone

There's no starting or stopping
where there is no right or
no wrong

Well that's all right for some
who can hang the absurd
on their wall

If your blind hands can't grope
through these measureless waters
you'll fall

You've been following patterns
and fleeting sensations
too long

And the fullness that fills up
the pulse of durations
is gone

Let the great constellation
of flickering ashes
be heard

Let them burn with a fire
all it takes to confess
is a word, just a word

I can recommend angels
I've watched as they've made a man strong
Oh so strong

If your humbleness shows
then I'm sure that they'll take you
along

You can tell them who sent you
it might help to get you
above

You can say that he laughed
and he walked like St. Francis
With love

05   Boy Child (03:38)

06   Hero of the War (02:28)

He's a hero of the war
All the neighborhood is talkin' 'bout your son
Mrs. Reiley get his medals
Hand them 'round to everyone
Show his gun to all the children in the street
It's too bad he can't shake hands or move his feet

He's a hero of the war
You can see his picture in the local news
Mrs. Reiley seems the girl next door is nowhere to be found
Once you couldn't keep that boy from hangin' 'round
Never mind dear, you're with your mum once more

He's a hero of the war
Like his dad he gave his life the war before
It was tragic how you almost died of pain when he was born
With no husband there beside you through it all
Ring the bell if you get hungry or you fall

You're a hero of the war
Why those teardrops on your cheek? it's so absurd
Feelin' empty it's the emptiness of heroes like your son
And what made him leave his mother for a gun
Driven forward driven back and nothing more

He's a hero of the war

07   The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime) (03:43)

08   Duchess (02:50)

It's your bicycle bells and you Rembrandt swells
Your children alive and still breathing
And your look of loss when you're coming across
Makes me feel like a thief when you're bleeding

Duchess Duchess
Light up your candles for me
Duchess Duchess
Put all your love back in me
I come listening I touch touching

With the Persian sea running through your veins
You shed your names with the seasons
Still they all return with the last remains
And they lay them before you like reasons

With your shimmering dress it says no it says yes
It says I've nothing left for conceiving
Its your shiftless flesh and your old girls grace
Its your young girls face that I'm breathing

Duchess Duchess
Light up your candles for me
Duchess Duchess Duchess
Put all the love back in me

I am lying she is crying

09   Get Behind Me (03:14)

Get Behind Me
It's the signs as we see them
There's no thresholds at all
There's no vows to be broken
As we rise, or we fall
There's no noise high above us
As the moon turns in space
Just the face of a lady
Who we loved for her grace

Get behind me, Get behind me
Won't you bend my ear again
I really need a friend
Get behind me, Get behind me
Remind me to remind me
Not to go back there again

When the threads of dark moments
Start to tremble with sound
And an almost formed whisper dies
The boundaries surround
We keep reaching beyond us
Through the shape shifting clouds
Why ain't I like you brother,
So electric, so proud

Get behind me, Get behind me
Won't you bend my ear again
I really need a friend
Get behind me, Get behind me
Remind me to remind me
Not to go back there again

Set us free of this feeling
So we'll be once again
So we won't feel the gravity of time
And the face in the faces
Of the loves we move through
Reappears in original design

Get behind me, Get behind me
Won't you bend my ear again
I really need a friend
Get behind me, Get behind me
Remind me to remind me
Not to go back there again

10   Rhymes of Goodbye (03:04)

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Other reviews

By Rocky

 Scott 4 was supposed to be the LP that would have consecrated him as an undisputed cursed star, but instead, it was a commercial flop, a beautiful album understood by few, a masterpiece understood by few.

 Scott 4 is good for any season, if you want an accompaniment for a starry sky, it’s perfect.