REVIEW: Mike Scott, Still Burning (Minty Fresh)
- Tracey Bleile
Whatever you may think of the Waterboys' Mike Scott - a little over the top, a little too arms flung wide - he is a showman first and a proselytizer second. He passionately believes, and he wants you to, too. And he'll pull out every trick he knows in the hopes of keeping you following along.
The Big Music is back, minus the rest of the Waterboys, but Scott works hard to revive the past with Still Burning. His first solo effort, Bring 'Em All In, was more of an exploration of Man plus Guitar equals Serious Singer/Songwriter. And while there are some quieter moments on this release ("Personal", "Sunrising"), Scott's area of strength doesn't lie in the minutiae of self-examination, but on the largesse of emotion and proclaiming one's feelings at the top of your lungs. And Burning brings all of that rushing back with much trumpet fanfare and guitars blazing.
Mike Scott is very much like Michael Been of The Call - an artist bent on bringing you closer to understanding their view of life's mysteries through their music. And the songs can be read many ways - the private love of the deity you worship, in a song like "Open" or the devotion to one human being that builds up and flows over with a song like "Love Anyway" - listen each time with an open mind, and you'll hear it a different way every time. Yet like the archangel whose name they share, there is also the examination of anger and earthbound demons playing a part in the human struggle that Scott faces in armed only with grinding heavy guitar in "My Dark Side" and the extra added thunder of an RD500 keyboard on "Dark Man Of My Dreams".
If you're a Waterboys fan, you've heard this all before, that unforgettable throaty warble bubbling through the songs that follow a very predictable, cadenced rhythm, which makes the absence of how much more percussion there used to be far more noticeable. But he has found an excellent groove between the excess and the folkiness with songs like "Rare, Precious and Gone", with the help of a Wurlitzer and the omnipresent horns. He is still an irrepressible and enjoyable performer, playing his Pan pipe and calling you to follow. With an album like Still Burning you find yourself chasing after, laughing and singing the whole way.
Also released is a long-overdue "greatest" collection, Whole Of The Moon which spans the entire W'boys catalog, and includes tracks from both solo Scott albums. Guess some things are worth resurrecting. Also available (but currently only as an import) is a great double-disc set Live Adventures Of The Waterboys, which includes killer versions of "This Is The Sea", "We Will Not Be Lovers", their biggest U.S. hit "Whole Of The Moon", and just because you can never have too much Prince, their cover of "Purple Rain".
The Big Music Lives!
