Melody Maker August 1983

"THE WATERBOYS"
(Chicken Jazz )

Uncertainty: The Waterboys themselves. Several bassists and drummers are credited here, and these songs were recorded over an eleven month period.

Certainty: If such details are doubtful, the stature of this music, thankfully, is not. The Waterboys, as were The Red & The Black, are Mike Scott and this is a long overdue collection of his songs.

The single, ‘A Girl Called Johnny’, was disappointing: A rather vague, piano-based retread of his forceful if eclectic work with Another Pretty Face. The song seemed average, the music mannered. And it’s still an uneventful song on this record, but lost now amongst seven others so great as to render its mediocrity unimportant.

Lyrically, the emphasis has markedly switched from the familiar narratives to something much more personal - and straightforward conclusions are less cut-and-dried but that’s largely irrelevant...these lyrics could never benefit from a close analysis and, with the decrease in characterisations, the emotions are amplified to a perfect pitch.

The Springsteen/Dylan traces are dimly apparent but Mike Scott has never covered his tracks and this is inspiration far removed from mere influence. It is open to accusations or cynicism, but charges of plagiarism are unfounded and narrow-minded. This is simply a rare talent, successful and honest in an area of music where most would stumble.

The songs are complemented by music of massive and sympathetic depth, and the breadth of the sound is stunning. The result is a melancholy aura which pervades the record: Most pronounced in the subdued, floating ‘December’, the bare feeling of ‘The Girl In The Swing’ and in the despair of ‘It Should Have Been You’, which carries an uncomfortable irony.

But there’s a constant undertow of hope: It rises ecstatically in ‘The Three Day Man’ and climaxes gloriously in ‘I Will Not Follow’ - affirmations of strength and a jovous individuality.

‘Savage Earth Heart’ is possibly the best realised moment - a biting, undefined and cryptic song, riding on a quietly confident, powering acoustic guitar. And all these means to various, magnificent ends are traditionally styled ... which matters not, other than to underline the fact that Mike Scott is one of only very few able to use such methods while retaining this degree of honesty, vitaility and originality.

ROBIN GIBSON