The Waterboys
Room To Roam

THE REVIEW

When you achieve a worldwide success with an album, you no longer know what to do... You don't know which direction to take, whether to strike while the iron is hot or to change course completely. In any case, you are already certain you won't replicate the predecessor's results. After "Fisherman's Blues", even Mike Scott doesn't know what to do: abandon the Celtic sounds to return to pop rock, replicate that style with less inspiration and luck... What he decides for the next "Room To Roam" is the "right" (?) compromise between the two, which means including a couple of epic pop-rock tracks, some experimentation with folk to frame it, and shortening the average length of the songs (only three exceed three minutes) to make everything more accessible, particularly by reducing the duration of the most challenging pieces to the bone. Anything to not compromise the easy listening ambitions (and success).

And so, between one and a half minute tracks and two-minute tracks, it starts more or less as it ended previously: the lullaby "In Search Of A Rose", followed by "Song From The End Of The World", old-fashioned country, that hasn't evolved because it stayed on the island. Mike Scott's voice is more like that of a minstrel from Albion, rather than a Yankee cowboy. Much superior is "A Man Is In Love", delicate as a drizzle. The trusty electric piano alleviates every little pain, aided by an impeccable flute, finally an instrument to replace those shrill (and sometimes unbearable) Irish violins, which redeem themselves by taking over - along with all the Chieftains, one might say - in the final minute, more out of "stylistic consistency" than "beauty".

Not having rock, blues-rock, and soul-rock available, we must "settle" for appreciating the linear (and effective) melody of "Bigger Picture". Not wanting to spare us his screams, his gritty interpretations, his strained high notes anymore, we are left to pretend to appreciate the new vocality of Mike Scott: an octave lower, no high notes, no grit... the voice of a young priest who hasn't lost his hair yet, a "contemplative" voice of someone who observes from a third-person perspective, rather than someone who experiences... "Something That Is Gone" is Van Morrison at the most delicate moments of his career, but it's also old-fashioned American music, with Bacharach leading the way. The subdued electric piano, accompanied by a very original saxophone in its phrasing, skillfully finishes the first and creatively the second.

The music that was of Scott and company at the beginning of the journey called Waterboys returns in "A Life Of Sundays", an epic Christian rock as in the old days, but inevitably with a less rough execution... Unfortunately and inevitably, when the song is over, those freaking violins have to return... I mean, really! Just for once, can't we do without these violins? Especially where and when they're of no use at all? "Islandman" is the only epic filler, two electric and challenging minutes, but undoubtedly atmospheric.

The end of the "right (?) compromise", that is, the end of the attempt to blend the early Waterboys with those post-"Fisherman's Blues": from then on, they won't stray from the path even for a second... Restart with the traditional "The Raggle Taggle Gypsy": listen to it and ask yourself if Branduardi is an artist... I already have my answer. The single from the album "How Long Will I Love You?" is an unpretentious and pleasant folk rock up to the last note. In "Spring Comes To Spiddal" there is the only experiment of this second half of the album: Celtic folk fuses with Dixieland jazz, to describe the spring and the mood of the people of Spiddal, which incidentally is the seaside town where this album and its older brother from two years earlier were recorded. In "Further Up, Further In" Scott adds lyrics to an "instrumental traditional", while in the title track, folk merges with fairground sounds, as seen on the cover.

Another classic of modern folk, although entirely inferior to its predecessor, "Room To Roam" doesn't enhance the fame or glory (nor the bulges inside the pockets) of Mike Scott, who, tormented but at peace like an English-speaking St. Francis, will re-embrace the trusty electric guitar, bringing little (only one violin) of this folk debauchery with him, and will set off again, in search of the perfect pop song to sign as Waterboys. He will find it three years later, at the last stop before the breakup (which will be followed by a solo period and a reunion that lasts until today), and it will be titled "Glastonbury Song".