Keep It Simple : Van Morrison : Review : Rolling Stone

At this point in his career, Van Morrison is less interested in surprises than in further exploring his long-standing obsessions: surviving the shocks of this life and rising gracefully toward the next one. Keep It Simple finds him looking back on his sixty-two years, filled with longing — for home, for deliverance from the world's demands, for spiritual transcendence. He boasts of surviving the "School of Hard Knocks," wryly chronicles a newfound sobriety in the aging roustabout's lament "Don't Go to Nightclubs Anymore" and sails into the mystic on the album closer, "Behind the Ritual." Typically, the band settles into a comfortable groove while Morrison lifts off into the trancelike realm he calls "entrainment." Meanwhile, the arrangements are elegantly spare: subtle works of guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion, occasional backup singers and, at the center of it all, Morrison's incomparable voice, as expressive as ever. "Only a fool could think that things would ever be simple again," he sings on the title track. But on this simple, soulful record, that kind of foolishness feels like wisdom.

ANTHONY DeCURTIS

(Posted: Apr 3, 2008)

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Give us your review of Keep It Simple

Review 1 of 2

5of 5 Stars

What can One say.....Van is still 'THE MAN'.

Apr 28, 2008 05:33:46

Review 2 of 2

5of 5 Stars

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Hi Anthony / R-S,

On behalf of Lost Highway Records, many thanks for reviewing Van Morrison's latest shows and new album and, if your readers want good quality, non-pirated, preview tracks, full versions of "That's Entrainment" and "Behind The Ritual" (along with album track samplers) are available for your readers to listen to (and link to) on Lost Highway's web-site at http://www.losthighwayrecords.com .

As you know, up-to-the-minute info on Keep It Simple and Van’s 2008 shows is, of course, also available on www.vanmorrison.com and www.myspace.com/vanmorrison and, for the next few days, your readers can hear Van's exclusive BBC sessions and interview at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/event_vanmorrison.shtml and http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio2_aod.shtml?radio2/paul_jones .

Thanks again for your support.

Regards,

WEB SHERIFF