By Ken Clarke
Here’s the deal, Van Morrison is a temporary cowboy.
Morrison’s latest release, Pay The Devil, comes seemingly wrapped in a transparent fiddle case with steel guitars weeping all over it. The bulk of this tired affair is a predictable sounding collection of country covers bringing nothing new to the table. A mere three original tunes are offered, but these are also vapidly contrived wastes of time.
While the music is uninspired, so too are Morrison’s choices in the songs he covers. Do we really need yet another version of Hank William’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart?”
Pay The Devil is simply a sterile journey into the well-worn landscape of countrified cliches. Morrison needs to know when to fold ’em.