THE WATERBOYS

Cooking Vinyl

cynical and his vision is undiminished. He’s just shrewder, more forgiving.

Scott grasps that having a grown-up mind doesn’t demand you relinquish your youthful fervour and its passions. ‘I once knew a man never thought he was wrong/ He would argue with every damn word of this song’, he sings on the title track, among the most wry and pleasing pieces of lyrical self-reflection since Bob Dylan’s famous refrain on My Back Pages. This is a joyous, wise and generous album, one you want to wrap up in a hearty hug.

THE VERDICT

Mike Scott delivers a shrewd, joyous and grown-up album, free of regret