The Waterboys
Fisherman's Blues

THE REVIEW

Three years after the consecration with "This Is The Sea", the beautiful and tormented Mike Scott moved from London to Dublin... But perhaps it's best to properly introduce this singer-songwriter and his personality before continuing... Scott is the classic good guy with good intentions but infused with that sense of restlessness, of searching, with that hopeful christian rock vibe... How? You had already understood it from the covers of his records? Too curly-haired and "yeah" to be the Anglo-Saxon Baglioni of the eighties, too much of a guitarist to be sappy, too cute and with too refined features to be a self-destructive nihilist...

And so, in full respect of his personality which in turn respects the covers of his albums, the young man searches for the perfect music and land (and sea?) for his inspiration, for his music and for his soul. And he finds his habitat not far off, even though perhaps for a Scottish artist who emigrated to London to achieve success, choosing to break away and move to Dublin is more than a simple change, and maybe it is truly a life choice...

The fact is that the subtle but noticeable folk influences his music is imbued with take over powerfully here in Eire, over the guitarism, the soul, Patti Smith, the epic rock of his time. The initial title track already explains it all from the start: this is "finally" the folk album of the Waterboys. One will then climb into a melancholic "Strange Boat" with delicate piano and violin that whispers a lullaby, helped by a harmonica. Meanwhile, perhaps remnants of that folk-rock current of "This Is The Sea", the only two faster pieces have arrived, "We Will Not Be Lovers", sax and violins in incessant operation above the guitars, for rock not very fast but intense and layered, and "World Party", panic sentiment and perfect combination of folk and "wind rock", to which a medieval castle trumpet is added at the end....

Mike is in no hurry, and inside him flows a current, a new green Irish sap, which wants to flow to the last. And in "Sweet Thing", piano and violin and voice, it plays up to seven minutes and more, until the batteries of the heart are completely drained. The violin takes such strange notes in that very slow fading away, that Mike and company will deserve great applause for their strange taste in making beautiful things even more beautiful.

An interlude titled "Jimmy Hickey's Waltz", a divertissement made to explain to us that in Ireland we are all easy-going, all friends, and all drunk... "A Bang On The Ear" is a traditional, rhythmic episode, with more of a country than Celtic folk taste (but as we know, the difference is and isn't there), with the violin predictably traveling above beautiful accordions. Mike's voice is always the same, but with each song, it seems to sound different. Never before had I thought it could "be country without being it".

Van Morrison is a ghost hovering over this album, but perhaps over Mike Scott's entire career. A superb artist, one rightly ascended to the music's Olympus, an Olympus which the amphibious demigod Scott aspires to, for the peace of his soul. The affinities with the supreme Van mostly emerge in "Has Anybody Here Seen Hank?", a perfect example of Celtic blues. "When Will We Be Married?" is incredible: over an entirely folk structure moves a singing style that has much of native American chants. Mike's voice sounds (intentionally) tired and pained. The last thirty seconds are heart-stopping... Placid "When Ye Go Away", a coin that doesn't fall, "standing", whose right side is called folk, called Ireland, and the left side is called country, called the United States of America.

Poetry, folk and prophecy, for this artist searching for panic peace and within himself, who will touch shores near new age like in this legendary "The Stolen Child"... The children are not lost at all, they escape the cruelty of the world and take refuge at the bottom of the sea, die and resurrect narf, then return to the earth to save it... The end of the album instead is the game, it's the joy of being together, the loving each other; "This Land Is Your Land" stands... Also mine, also that of the one who lives on the other side of the world... A land that is a home. To love in all its suggestions... Feel it yours and feel yourself hers, wherever you are.

Mike Scott and all his Waterboys, with this masterpiece, will bring "the home of the soul" around the world, and into the homes of us all. And we too will have our little refuge of serenity, at hand, whenever we want.