Those familiar with Van Morrison’s ever mercurial muse could hardly have been surprised when he turned up on the artistically centered, avant-country label Lost Highway to pay tribute to a era-spanning slate of country icons on the Nashville imprint's ‘06 collection,  Pay the Devil. But while the ensuing years were dominated by several rich anthologies of Morrison’s work, he’s returned here to masterfully show his love of country was no passing fancy. As the title suggests, Morrison’s self-produced approach to the genre is both musically and emotionally elemental, a no frills approach that fits him like a well-worn pair of Tony Llamas. Indeed, even as he’s addressing matters of musical style and substance in an unusually introspective way on "That’s Entertainment" and "Soul," the veteran’s singing here is so natural and deceptively effortless as to disguise how forcefully Morrison has immersed himself in the country mold – or, more to the point, remade it lovingly in his own image, also marking the first time in several years he’s penned all the songs on one of his albums. Whether offering a little tutelage about the vagaries of fate on "School of Hard Knocks," taking W.C. Handy’s "St. Louis Blues" as the starting point for the slow-burning, Hammond B3-seeped country blues lament "Don’t Go to Nightclubs Anymore," or preaching the backroads Zen gospel of the title track and Banjo-seasoned elegy "Song of Home," Morrison’s warm, world-weary voice connects with themes that are as familiar as sunshine – and every bit as fundamentally complicated.--Jerry McCulley