Album Review : The Waterboys--Irish Heart

After the passionate, anthem-prone stance of their widely admired 1985 album, “This Is the Sea,” the London-based Waterboys were frequently touted as the next U2. Like Bono Hewson, the Waterboys’ Mike Scott is an unusually charismatic performer whose believes in music’s ability to comfort and inspire.

Even the Waterboys’ most loyal fans, however, were probably surprised when Scott--who had toured with U2--headed for Dublin in 1986 and began recording some tracks in the Irish rock band’s own Windmill Lane studio. Were the Waterboys trying to be U2-II?

Relax: “Fisherman’s Blues,” doesn’t attempt to recycle “The Joshua Tree” or “Rattle and Hum.” Scott--the band’s singer and main writer--has found inspiration in Ireland, but it is in the seductive charm of traditional Irish music and the mystical introspection of an Irish rocker who long has intrigued him--Van Morrison.

Flavoring his music with strong traces of Irish tradition (lots of fiddle and mandolin) much the way John Cougar Mellencamp now seasons his music with rural country elements, Scott injects “Fisherman’s Blues” with warmth and grace that is ideal for disarmingly personal nature of his themes about discouragement/doubt and innocence/faith.

Scott and the band don’t shy away from ambitious touches (including setting a Yeats poem to music), but they do avoid a past tendency to turn every thought or emotion into some sort of epic statement. Alternately wistful, teasing, angry, philosophical, Scott retains his passion, but--by working on a smaller, though richer canvas--Scott makes it seem all the more human. A stirring and affecting work.