Van Morrison’s new CD, his umpteenth release but his first for Virgin (via Point Blank), is confidently called Back on Top. Over-confidently, in fact – at least not as far as a long-time Van fan is concerned. It’s not that Back on Top is bad, it’s just that so much of it sounds like so much else of Morrison’s work over the last decade.
It opens with the blustery blues Goin’ Down Geneva, fun but not exactly a fresh direction, and goes on with The Philosopher’s Stone, in which Morrison does his regular humble-mystic “I’m still searching for the meaning of life” thing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like the search is going anywhere particularly new.
In the Midnight is a lovely, melancholy song, gentle and understated, the best on the CD and one of two numbers that might legitimately stand with classic Van. The other is When the Leaves Come Falling Down, which is also lovely, if a little over- extended. On these tracks, Brian Kennedy’s backing vocals, shadowing Morrison’s voice in the way Jennifer Warnes did for Leonard Cohen or Emmylou Harris shadowed Bob Dylan on Desire, really come into their own.
Elsewhere, though, despite the golden glow of the arrangements and many superb touches, the songwriting is just too routine – this is Morrison recycling himself. The slow numbers sound maudlin and the jaunty ones a little tired. High Summer, to give an example, is pretty damn close to Dweller on the Threshold, without its urgency (and what on earth does “high summer on the rebound” mean?).
If you have no Nineties Morrison in your collection, Back on Top is a good showcase of his present mellifluous old-master style. But, if you have anything from Enlightenment on, it will sound all too familiar.