| Mike Scott is one of those guys who has Steely Dan-itis; you know, he
has no real band anymore but still calls his projects "The Waterboys"
as if someone might be fooled. Hey, after all, he's living in NYC now
and his new album "Dream Harder" is populated with studio ringers like
Jim Keltner, Scott Thunes and Kenny Aaronson. After playing all those
tricky Zappa charts wonder how Scott digs playing only three or four
notes per song. At least Keltner ghets a co-writing credit which should
pay for a few brewskis.
Yep, after two albums recorded while living in the bucolic Irish
countryside, Mike has dumped the fiddles, whistles and squeezeboxes
that we have grown to love in favor of loud wah wah guitars. However,
his brain must still be in Eire not NYC, because most of the songs are
loaded with that fried-brain hippie mysticism that the Incredible
String Band used to be so fond of. Except that it's (mostly) tied to
some real rocking.
The first four tracks ("The New Life", "Glastonbury Song", "Preparing
To Fly" and "The Return Of Pan") are pretty righteous stompers with
nice hooks and Beatleish harmony work. Ok, then things droop a bit
with the countryish "Corn Circles", although this is followed by a nice
kiss-off song. The next few tracks are mere fragments of songs, with
one setting a Yeats poem to music ("Death and Love")...holy Van
Morrison, Batman! Was that a sitar on one song? Yep, and then we're
off into the recitation piece "The Return of Jimi Hendrix" which makes
me worry that we'll see a slew of Jimi legend songs just like the C&W
world keeps dredging up the image of Hank.
The first half of this album is so good that the collapse of the second
half is unfortunate. If you were fond of the neo-folkish Waterboys of
"Fisherman's Blues" and "Room to Roam" you might not like this much,
but if your taste is for classic guitar driven pop-rock, there are some
good songs to sink your teeth into here.
Brian
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