These Boys Walk On Water
I first came across The Waterboys when they were the support act to U2 at the Apollo Manchester in November 1984. Wow, over twenty years ago, bloody hell I am getting old! What chances and what price would that ticket for the gig be today? And I am sure we all have a favourite Waterboys track - mine has to be 'Whole of the Moon'!
For well over twenty years now The Waterboys have scored our dreams and aspirations for a whole generation, and with 'Book of Lightning' this continues with some new classics.
The opening of the album starts with the sort of rock n roll you would expect from this band and 'Crash Of Angel Wings' and 'Love Will Shoot You Down ' are the ideal tracks to open the album, before the pace is taken down with the melancholy number 'Nobody's Baby Anymore' and the next two tracks follow very much in the same vain.
The pace picks up when we get to 'It's Gonna Rain ', which sounds to me like a new classic and possible hit for the stalwarts of the business. This is followed by two hauntingly beautiful tracks where the keyboards are to the fore- 'Sustain' and 'You In The Sky'.
I cannot describe the pleasure that listening to this album gives, as it packs more in than you could in a dirty weekend away in Brighton! This album is a testament to Mike Scotts love of music and not afraid to try new things and still come out on top. The lyrics in place are beautiful and haunting while at the same time being savage while being rather humerous. "The devil drives a hard bargin" he tells us in 'Everybody Takes A Tumble' and we "need to pick ourselves up". Oh, how true.
Another musical masterpiece that should be in everyone's music collection, as this is one banging album with beautiful music for our ears.