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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
INCLUDES ONE OF MY FAVOURITE TRACKS OF ALL TIME, 24 Jan 2008
This album is one of the greatest popular music albums of all time,and it includes a track that would certainly be on my list of Desert Island Discs,that's Coney Island.A trip on the coastline of Belfast,so well written you feel your being personally escorted by Van himself around his hometown.
Then theres the beautiful songs that have become Van classics,Have I Told You Lately That I Love You (still by far the best ever recording of this song)and These Are The Days (remember it in the Hugh Grant movie Nine Months,when he's walking around the room with his baby).This album still gets better everytime I put it on and should be in every collection.I'm still amazed by the structure and majasty of songs like When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God,just listen to the power of his lyrics here.Then theres the big hit he had with Cliff Richard, Wherever God Shines His Light.Oh I could go on and on but it really comes down to one thing this is an absolutely fabulous release and should not be missed by anyone this time around.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lush Van classic, 23 April 2008
When Radio Two had a Van Morrison week not so long ago it cemented , to my mind anyway, that Van Morrison is an artist of contrasts.Some of his work is fantastic, some of it is okay and some of it is pants. It could be argued that you could level that at just about any artist but with Van Morrison the dichotomy is even more emphatic.
Avalon Sunset , recently remastered ( Of the recent re-releases only Avalon Sunset and Back On Top have been newly re-mastered) is one of the Van Morrison albums i love. Originally released in 1989 ( A very fine year for albums) coming a year after the superb "Irish Heartbeat" the album was recorded in London ,Bath, and close to Avalon the mythic kingdom of King Arthur. Musicians who worked on the album included Georgie Fame on the hammond organ who worked with Morrison extensively throughout the nineties.
The songs were all rehearsed for two days and then recorded over another two days . This level of spontaneity is apparent with one or two of the songs which have a looser feel. On "Daring Night" you can even hear Morrison calling a change in tempo. However much of the album has a lush sheen which suggests move love and attention rather than a daring throwaway approach.
The album is considered to be a spiritual one , but only the duet with Cliff Richard "Whenever God Shines His Light" , a pleasant enough track but one which rubs up this atheist the wrong way, speaks of direct faith. "When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God" , a far better song anyway , seems to question faith rather than revel in it.The ethereal "Contacting My Angel" is actually about a woman's presence ,not some celestial deity.Personally i prefer the verdant orchestrated pieces. Even the spoken word "Coney Island" , which seems to wind a lot of people up , has a compelling nostalgic ambience that really wraps you up and the final line "Would,nt it be nice if it like this all the time" has the power to really connect.
Arguably the most well known track off the album "Have I Told You Lately " is still a powerful affecting ballad and "Orangefield" has swooning strings, apt as the song is about schoolday love. The bluesier songs like "I,d Love To Write Another Song" and "Daring Night" are,nt as vital for this reviewer but prevent the album from becoming too cloying and emollient.
Along with "Poetic Champions Compose", "No Guru No Method, No Teacher", "Irish Heartbeat" and "Tupelo Honey" Avalon Sunset is my favourite Van Morrison album. Others will of course have their own and may well disagree violently with me. As i said at the reviews beginning Van Morrison is an artist of contrasts. Sometimes i can not so much take him or leave him as cross a multi-lane highway to avoid him. Avalon Sunset though is terrific.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Great Underrated, 11 April 2008
In some ways "Avalon Sunset" is an odd album.This might have to something to do with the thread of religiosity which runs through it. There is also the variety of styles - New Age sound washes, Irish whimsy, the soppy and sentimental, and straight down-to-earth blues and soul.
The first song "Whenever God Shines His Light" is a duet with Cliff Richard. An out-and-out pop song, OK but slightly out of place. From this to "Contacting My Angel". I'm not so keen on this. It seems to have strayed in from "Inarticulate Speech of the Heart", without doubt the direst album Van Morrison ever made. "I'd Like to Write Another Song" is a spirited blues number, sung against blustering saxes and Georgie Fame's Hammond organ. Van sings like Joe Turner. No higher praise. The words were clearly barrel scraped - but it shows how to write a song when there is nothing to write about.
"Have I Told You Lately" is a very effective soppy number - much loved by, and played for, newlyweds at their wedding dance. "Coney Island" is spoken. In simple language he describes his experience and feelings on a day out in Ireland. It works. "I'm Tired Joey Boy" is out of the same mould. Simple, Irish folk song feel.
It's the last four songs that, for me, bring this album to near classic status. They all have their faults. Van was clearly metaphysical at the time he wrote the lyrics. But he is back into soul mood, and with the grain of his talent.
"When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God" opens up on bass and primitive acoustic guitar over piano chords. It's simple straight declamation from Van Morrison, but, in the same way as you hear the gospel choir in Aretha Franklin, you can hear the Irish preacher in him. In "Orangefield" we are still in Ireland. The lyric here is simpler - an expression of delight in his lover. The music's heaviness and bombast overwhelm the words. But we are properly in the world of soul here, sound separating from meaning. The female backing group seem out of the Staple Singers.
In "Daring Night" we are lovers looking at the stars and dreaming of infinity. The words don't matter much. Van's vocalising becomes increasingly improvisatory in rapid repetitions of "baby, baby", "lord of the dance", "squeeze me" towards a climax, diminishing to pianissimo, alongside vocal ejaculations "don't let go". Van's confident, in-your-face vocal and evident relish of the music sweeps all before it.
The final song, "These Are The Days", opens on a two-note rocking figure on piano, then guitar over accordion and cellos. Laid back vocal for a slow and heavily nostalgic song, looking back to the summers when he was young. God comes is as "the love of one magician turned the water into wine". Some of the best is towards the end, after the song is sung when he and the female backing group vocalise wordlessly - "na, na, na, na" - female wailing above him gospel fashion. Climax then out.
Why isn't it a classic?
All criticisms fall away before the Man. One of the great vocalists of the past fifty years
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