Waterboys
The Waterboys' first album is here reconstructed with a generous 30 minutes of additional music. When Mike Scott began assembling these recordings back in 1981 he was still some way from finding his vision for the Waterboys. The first album was not much more than a collection of solo recordings that reflected influences from his recent past, including the impact of punk and new wave on the regional band scene in the UK. His lyrics walk the fine line between pretension and insight. Only on "Savage Earth Heart" do we get a hint of the shape of things to come. Scott's unsophisticated piano drives a lot of the tracks, including the memorable "A Girl Called Johnny," but the album suffers from his carrying the weight of the playing. Anthony Thistlethwaite's sax is often shrill and obtrusive and the backing tracks miss the cohesion of a band. The producers of this reissue worked with Scott to restore edited and missing tracks left off the original long-player for space reasons, while also adding additional contemporaneous tracks.--Rob Stewart