Van Morrison
REVIEWS
ASTRAL WEEKS, 1969
Rating: 6
Best Song-The way young lovers do
Worst Song-Beside You
A nice and gentle soft-rock record: sadly, more than often smoothness becomes
boring noodling, without any musical interest.
Written by Federico Marcon
Well, well, well, I've bought this album yesterday afternoon
and I've listened to it for the whole night. The first reaction was: what
the hell is this boring crap? Where's the hooks, where' s the melodies, and
so on... Usually I give a second chance even to really bad albums (Calling
all the stations too!!!), but this time I've decided to write a review that
reflects my actual thoughts about this album. And, sadly for the fans, my
thoughts are not very gentle toward AS. Why? Just look at the album: 6 songs
out of 8 clock over five minutes, and they are alla write in the same style!
Well, there are a lot of boring but good albums, I'm thinking to Blonde
On Blonde, Fear Of Music, Unknown Pleasures, Dire Straits, Five Leaves Left,
Safe As Milk... all of these album were written in the same style
and the whole albums are so uniform 'till the point you can't tell when a
song ends and another begins (sure, it's a bit of a rough comment for albums
like Blonde On Blond or Safe As Milk, but
you have to admit that all of them aren't extremely diverse). AS
belongs to the category of boring albums, but it's far from being good or
pleasant. The core of the songs is Van Morrison' acoustic guitar, that plays
three or four elementary chords, backed by a band composed of session jazz
musicians. Oh, sure, it's clear what's the message behind this album: Van
Morrison says "Lay back, relax yourself and listen to the beautiful and soulfull
stream of my poetry". The poetry. That's one of the strenght-point of the
album: not that I care for WHAT Van Morrison is singing, but for the WAY in
which he sings. He's warm and calm voice, that sometimes becomes piercing
and sometimes sing in a half-spoken way, is surely the main attraction of
the album; but he doesn't master his voice as a singer-songwriter is supposed
to do: there's no variations, the melodical shifts are so weak you can't notice
them, he always sings in the same mood. And his lyrics are not that good:
stream of cosciousness is a difficult poetic-rethrorical technique to master,
there's the risk your speech turns into sensless rantings. As usual: putting
togheter a lot of images and so-called-passional elements, doesn't make a
poem, but just a shitty cluster!
If the lyrics are not that great (but I admit that often they are charming), the music is even worse. The overeapeated acoustic chords are hard to tolerate... thanks God there are some tasty strings or vibes that play interesting licks of soulfull atmospheric progressions of chords. It's easy to see the main flaw of this record: listen to it and try to remember a melody. There's no hooks, no interesting melodies, no great instrumental passages, just a monotonous chanting backed by ploddering grooves without any focus. I can see tha passion in the vocals of "Astral Weeks" or the melancholic feel of "Cyprus Avenue", or the darkness that runs all over "Ballerina": I can trace a lot of diverse feelings when I accurately listen to the songs, or better to the cluster of slow and smooth jams: when you consider the album as a whole, you'll understand why it isn't only a boring crap! This album is intended to be listened as a whole: as a journey to your intimate feeling... but this doesn't mean you can bother me with your crappy music. All of the "songs" here are jams: now a jam is, for its own definitions, without a fix and rigid structure. So what makes a jam interesting is the interplay, the musical competence of the band and the general feeling the jam transmit to you. I'm the first person on earth to admit this album has a charming feeling and an original atmosphere, but, c'mon, it isn't the only one! There are Bob Dylan, Tim Buckely, Nick Drake, Simon&Garfunkel: they are better songwriter and they are able to focus their longest songs in order to increase the emotional impact. Van Morrison is not able of that; only "The way young lover do" have some musical interest for the ringing jazzy rhythm and for the "melancholic-pop" hooks in it. Van Morrison had good musicians around him, alla of them are in fact accomplished jazz players, but they play only trite melodies or shitty licks (often, not always). Sure, music shouldn't be complex for being good but you have to avoid to be boring! The only thing that amazes me is how Van Morrison in this album is able to... step lightly, just like a ballerina! The atmosphere and the introspective power are the best features of AS, but apart of them, the album hasn't any musical interest.
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