Keep It Simple

Lost Highway
(UK release date March 17, 2008;
North American release date April 1, 2008)

Press release:
On March 11 [ed: the North American release date was later moved to April 1], Lost Highway will proudly release Keep It Simple, the new album from Van Morrison. Keep It Simple is Morrison's first album of new material since 2005, and the first in several years in which he penned all 11 songs specifically for one album. In the interim the legendary artist had a year that may be unprecedented for any living artist, having released three separate collections of his hits, with the latest, Still On Top entering the UK charts at #2 and selling platinum, proving the ongoing appetite for his unrivaled work.

His music has always incorporated the widely varied influences he heard and absorbed since his childhood days on the streets of Belfast - long before the bands of his youth and his initial breakthrough with Them. On Keep It Simple, Morrison honors all those varied influences - jazz, folk, blues, Celtic, country, soul and gospel - at times melding them all together at once in his own signature sound. "I felt I had something to say with these songs..." explains Morrison. There is a definite theme that recurs throughout the album, especially in the title track.

In keeping with that idea, Keep It Simple does not boast the big horns or string arrangements of some of Morrison's previous work. What it does feature are gorgeous songs rich with emotion, depth and beauty.

Review by Scott Thomas:
On what may be the greatest (so far) of Van Morrison's late period albums, the artist seems especially concerned about getting his message across. The opening blues track is sung to a person who refuses to believe the truth: "How can a poor boy deliver this message to you?" In "School of Hard Knocks," he laments that there are "no answers -- only silence." In the naked title track, Morrison parses, patiently and with the utmost care, the challenges of communication. The singer is faced with delivering "illusions and pipedreams on the one hand" and "straight reality" on the other. Either way, he risks being mocked by his audience.

Morrison is so desirous to "get through" to the listener on Keep It Simple that he brooks no interference from distractions like velvet production and beautiful sounds. For the first time since Wavelength in 1978, he employs no outside horn players. The only horn is Morrison's alto sax which provides succinct and melodic solos on "Soul" and "Behind the Ritual" that are highlights of the songs they inhabit. The string section has also been exiled and, while an occasional steel guitar and fiddle have been ported over from his 2006 country project Pay the Devil, the sound that dominates here is a very rock-like configuration of piano / organ / guitar / rhythm section. Not since the early 70's and John Platania's earlier tenure in Van's band has electric guitar been so prominent. Recent Morrison releases, of course, have had plenty of slinky blues playing and there is some here, but the bulk of the guitar work on Keep It Simple evokes Memphis and Big Pink instead of Chicago. Note the harmonics-laden intro to "School of Hard Knocks" which is redolent of Robbie Robertson. The ghost of Luther Perkins is all over "Behind the Ritual." On "Lover Come Back," which itself sounds like a long-forgotten outtake from Hard Nose the Highway, Platania channels Steve Cropper while Mick Green's solo at the conclusion of "Soul" is so loud it actually over-modulates, a wonderful thing in this pristine digital era. Throughout all of this, Morrison's voice is way out front and seemingly bereft of any processing. This is brave because, for the first time, the famous voice is beginning to betray signs of age as evidenced by some hoarseness in the lower registers. Such vulnerability only serves to enhance the authenticity of the performances and underscores Morrison's humanity. It is most apparent in the title track so that when he sings, "I'm down here on the running running board / Where I've been many times before," you believe him.

Keep It Simple may present a Morrison who frets a bit about breakdowns in communication, but the message itself is ultimately one of happiness and contentment. "That's Entrainment," with its yukele, handclaps, and sunny guitar, is the most joyful thing he's done in decades. "No Thing," which shifts from folk to blues to country and concludes brilliantly, is about the singer's desire to "get back one more day," to reclaim a mere 24 hours in a life that is fast running out. This, of course, is impossible, but in the end the song communicates a cheerful acceptance of all we cannot control. Similarly, "Don't Go to Night Clubs Anymore" is good-natured as it addresses the changing nocturnal rituals that come with old age. This brings us to "Behind the Ritual," the final song, whose subject is the nocturnal rituals of youth. The singer recalls being drunk, hanging out with friends one of whom is a special girl. It matters not that this occurs in the alley and that the girl's name is Sally. Easy rhymes and blah blah blahs aside, the singing and playing communicate pure transcendence, and we have yet another example of Morrison prizing the incomparably special from repetition, routine, and the commonplace or, as he insists, "Behind the ritual you find the spiritual."

Review by Ben Greenman from The New Yorker:
After forty years of refining his holy hybrid of American R. & B. and Celtic folk, Van Morrison is taken for granted as a rock-and-roll icon. And while canonization has its advantages, it doesn't serve the living artist. Morrison - who plays at the United Palace on March 15 - continues to explore all matters poetic, spiritual, and emotional, and if his albums have become more loose-fitting over time, they never stray far from the same central questions: What produces inspiration for living men? How should we stand in relation to the great art that came before us? How can a man both change and remain the same? What keeps Morrison from seeming churlish - as if he did not hear the answers the first time around - is his musical reach and, most important, his incomparable vocals.

Keep It Simple (Lost Highway), his thirty-eighth solo album, opens unpromisingly, with "How Can a Poor Boy?," a plodding blues over which Morrison sings well but not interestingly. What follows is far more rewarding. "School of Hard Knocks" is the most recent (and one of the least bilious) in a long line of songs that target critics, graceless fans, and anyone else who has got between him and his search for enlightenment. "No wavelength," he sings, "no mileage, no current currency / No answers, just silence, nothing is what it's supposed to be." Elsewhere, there's an agile little love song with philosophical overtones ("That's Entrainment"), a wrenching romantic ballad ("Lover Come Back"), and a loping country-tinged song whose melody recalls the standard "Marie's Wedding" ("Song of Home"). Morrison's recent albums have featured prominent horn and string arrangements; this time around, he's backed mostly by guitar, a surprising amount of which is electric. The songs are compact; only the closer, "Behind the Ritual," breaks the six-minute mark. The over-all mood is welcoming, which isn't to say ingratiating, and temperate, which isn't to say mellow. There's nothing as fiercely mournful as "Linden Arden Stole the Highlights," from Veedon Fleece, or as triumphantly erotic as "Angeliou," from Into the Music, true, but those albums didn't have anything as unpretentiously wise as the title track of this one.

Van did an audio interview with the BBC and talked about this album; the interview aired March 10, 2008.

Bent Sørenson offers some thoughtful insights on Keep It Simple in this blog entry.

Part of the van-the-man.info unofficial website