That tends to be something you find on most Van records particularly over the last few decades. They sound wonderful and you can pick out each instrument.
Interestingly, Van is currently being savaged in a lot of places over the songs he released during the lockdown and his new record which just came out this month and I have a pretty good idea that a lot of the people ripping into it have not heard it nor paid much attention to songs Van has released over the last 30 years or so.
Full disclosure, I am a long time fan of Mr. Morrison's musical output. That said the songs he released during the lockdown, 3 or 4 songs including one with Eric Clapton (also being savaged but not the first time in this grinder for EC he made some comments in the 1970s which were not cool) are pretty lousy and set to the typical gurgling R&B backing he generally has been into for some time. Bottom line they sound like throwaways not really protest songs.
It seems many reviewers have lumped his recent double album in with the lockdown tunes but there is a rather major issue with that, while his lockdown songs were written during lockdown the material on this double album was all written and recorded in 2019 or before...meaning all of these songs were composed and recorded prior to Covid 19 protocols were put in place.
I would say that people making snarky comments and tearing into Morrison, including ridiculous allegations of anti-Semitism over one song, probably have not been listening to Morrison's records for the last 40 years. He often includes songs that have lyrics that are gripes about the media, getting ripped off in the music industry, and generally getting stabbed in the back by so called friends.
There is nothing new here in that regard and the songs on the record are not about QAnon related conspiracies nor his love of FOX News. Essentially, all the flailing about and "outrage" about this record is a joke and a prime example of punishment being randomly doled out over people getting ticked off over the songs he released during the lockdown...which do not appear on his new double album and hopefully don't appear on any future releases. I say that because they are just not great tunes, the Clapton one probably being the best of them but they mainly sound tossed off.
I had a good listen to his new record over the long weekend. It's a solid record with Van in excellent voice backed by a very good band that provides the kind of jazzy, bluesy, R&B backing Van has preferred for some time. Are there some bitchy songs? Yes, the worst of which is one that appears a long complaint over giving a wife or girlfriend everything and she keeps complaining. That's probably the most whiney song on the record. Outside of that it is mostly typical Van of the last 30 years.
Does he sail off into the mystic at any point? No, not really and truth is I miss that side of Morrison as well, but what he does do is hit some nice inspired grooves, like the tune Blue Funk, that sound great and he sounds into as he delivers them. He also plays some tasty sax at times and the record is quite enjoyable.
Should he be being ripped apart for this record? No, but these are the times we live in. It does suck that some right wing nuts have latched on to some of his songs which gives the appearance he was courting them and that Tucker Carlson is now a fan apparently. However, Mr. Morrison likely never intended any of that even though he probably should have grasped that releasing those 3 or 4 songs railing about lockdown would put him in the midst of our lunatic political conversation.
That kind of thing never really ends well.
