Music Review: Van Morrison, Keep Me Singing

It's now more than four decades since Van Morrison's most-talked about studio albums, Astral Weeks and Moondance were released, and along with the live set It's too Late to Stop Now they are the benchmarks for most fans of Van the Man.

Of course, among his nearly 40 studio releases there will be more favourites even though his output over the years has sometimes been uneven.

Keep Me Singing then is a Van Morrison that will be dissected and compared. But you can relax from the get-go because this is a fine album.

At 71 Van is in good voice, sounds relaxed and focused and seems to benefit again from shouldering the role of producer.

Maybe Van is a control freak. If that's so the end result of this album shows that he knows what he is doing.

As is the case for most of Van Morrison's albums, plucking favourite songs from them is generally a wasted exercise over at least the past couple of decades.

Instead it's best to make a call on the overall sound and flow, the originality factor also needs to be considered. Using those criteria Keep Me Singing is right up there.

Van hasn't just trawled the lyrics that he has in his war chest, he's brought new gems to the table.

The musicianship is also of a high standard, thanks not only to his own contribution but also to Fiachra Trench who contributes keyboards on most tracks and has arranged the strings on many of the tracks.

Van himself stretches his repertoire with drums, blues harp, alto sax and lead guitar on some of the songs.

The rest of the band is high class too, the end result being that Keep Me Singing isn't just for staunch and loyal long term fans. In other words studio album number 36 is one you'll just have to find the money for.

Rating: 5/5 stars