Beautiful Vision
This 1982 sleeper captures Van Morrison banking the fires of his more urgent, R&B-flavored; '70s classics to sculpt a quieter, contemplative synthesis laced with Celtic flourishes, minimalist synthesizers, and the skeletal horn charts of saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis and trumpeter-synthesist Mark Isham. Neither as expansive as the pastoral jazz meditations of the underratedCommon Onenor as limpid as the glossier, sometimes gloomier confessional pop that dominates his later-'80s albums,Beautiful Visionhews to ballads and loping, midtempo songs that allow Morrison gentle foils for his unmistakable vocal melismas. On its best tracks, "Dweller on the Threshold," "Cleaning Windows," "Vanlose Stairway," and "She Gives Me Religion," he alchemizes soul, gospel, and his own Irish roots in a balance he would often pursue from this point forward.--Sam Sutherland