New Musical Express - May 1993

THE WATERBOYS
DREAM HARDER
(Geffen)

Hey, c’mon over, we got lots of the old gang here. We got Crazy Horse the old indian chief. We got Pan, your long-lost Grecian buddy with his horns and his cloven hooves. We got Jimi Hendrix back from the dead and Billy Connolly gassing on about the meaning of life. And we got stones, stacks of ancient stones, as far as the eye can see - from the Outer Hebrides to the neolithic glory of the Boyne Valley, and then west over the Atlantic to the storm-lashed isle of Inisheer. C’mon over, Mike Scott’s having a party.

And ‘Dream Harder’ is some party - the kind of trip that reminds you how every Waterboys record should have the legend ‘To Be Continued...’ scratched into the run-off groove. For every time that Mike closes a record with a cheery domestic scene, you know there’ll be earthquakes, blazing comets and bitchy explosions over the start of the next one. Just when you think Mike’s got his spiritual bearings all fixed up, there’s bound to be some nasty diversion in the following chapter, some trickster to steer him off course, some weird enchantment that only becomes clear a couple of years later.

Often you’ll meet old pals and revisit favourite places you’d almost forgotten. Tunes you half-remember will drift by (wow, wasn’t that a steal from ‘The Pan Within’?) and familiar motifs gnaw away at the imagination. But it’s never quite the same deal. Like it or not, it’s always a blast to sit down with the next Mike Scott installment and have your expectations all perfectly trashed.

The critical vibe on ‘Room To Roam’, Mike’s last record, was that his long stay in Ireland had resulted in complacency - that he was so happy communing with the dolphin in Dingle Bay and following the fellow that fiddles, that he’s neglected all that was majestic and mind-expanding about The Waterboys. But for every twee interlude on it there was a blazing tune, or the likes of ‘Bigger Picture’ to set you star-gazing some more. And without some knowledge of fantasy and folk tales of ‘Room To Roam’ you’d maybe freak altogether on the interstellar soul journeys of ‘Dream Harder’.

Because it’s cosmic, man. Imagine a meeting place between Julian Cope’s ‘Jehovakill’ and Van Morrison’s ‘Summertime In England’. Take the effervescent beat prosody of Patti Smith’s ‘Land’ and suppose you’ve also got Hendrix riffing crazily and banging his whammy bar from beyond the grave. Chuck in a silly tune about corn circles, nick some sleevework off an old Cat Stevens album, gaze moonstruck at the Calandish Stones on the Isle Of Lewis, then haul it all over Greenwich Village, New York, to cook slowly.

Half a dozen of these songs are stupendous. ‘Glastonbury Song’ reprises all the questing, stone-chasing scenes from life, and sets the singer atop the famous west country Tor, momentarily still, the wind blasting his features. He’s sensitised, ecstatic, musing on a golden age he feels is almost ready for the grasping. Fretblanket fans will hate it. Likewise with ‘Preparing To Fly’, a song that recalls - and you don’t know how excited I am to report this - ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ high up in that gravity-free zone where sex and spirit crackle in unison, where guitars roar and angels’ voices go bucking over the funky drums in this wonderful, rushing epiphany. I hear bits of John Lennon’s ‘Mind Games’ and the string passage at the end reminds you of the last fragments of ‘All You Need Is Love’ when everything seemed possible and plausible for a couple of seconds, at least. Immense.

Scott’s message is manifestly New Age, but where The Waterboys and some of their crusty brethren differ is in the attitude to the music. Mike isn’t on a folkie, techno-shy tip so much now. For every Greek clarinet on the new record, there’s the rhythmic flash of ‘The Return Of Jimi Hendrix’ and the splurge of words and the firework noises that goes with it. If you don’t like the reggae idea on the twisted, dissing ‘Suffer’, then hold out for ‘Wonders Of Lewis’ that tends, like Prince’s ‘The Cross’, to strive towards some alternative, freaked-out gospel music.

The problem with any party like ‘Dream Harder’ is that you’ve got to bring along an open mind. You’ve got to accept the premise that Mike Scott has some kind of a vision, and allow him to tell you about it. And the problem, as Steven Wells said, is that when you open your mind you never know what might crawl in there.

Which is why you can’t say ‘Dream Harder’ is unconditionally great. Some people already have a problem with the musical arrangement of the Yeats poem ‘Love And Death’ - they say it sounds like Marillion. Or they’ll say that ‘Spiritual City’ comes across like Neil from the Young Ones doing ’Hole In My Shoe’ - the narrator all too readily blown away by mystical possibilities and the twang of an old sitar. Yeah, and ‘Corn Circles’ is a bit silly in the wake of three magical songs.

A final note. In September ‘91, Mike Scott appeared at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre for a special charity show. He was reciting Yeats poems and generally hanging loose. And, as a special gesture, Mike was unveiling a brand new song. It was called ‘Sympathy For Mister Icke.’

In the course of the song, Mike had a giggle at David Icke’s crap taste in track-suits, and the fact that often the wisdom of ‘The Truth Vibrations’ seemed to outweigh the man. But Mike was kind to the goalkeeper-turned-visionary too, especially David’s notion that we’re all essentially sparks of light. “Though his predictions may be shite,” the Waterboy crooned, “Don’t Dismiss Mister Icke”.

Likewise with Mister Scott. Go quest, young man.

STUART BAILIE