Hymns To The Silence, a double, was the second entry in the 1990s of high quality yet somewhat minor key albums by Van, leading to a mind boggling 12 albums(including a liver) from 1990 to 2000, Hymns was never the height nor the low of the event, it was a fine set of songs of varying strength though highlighted with the superb “Quality Street” and the genuinely bemused “Why Must I Always Have To Explain?”.
“Peace Of Mind” is a piece of self-help as Morrison admits to his own frailty (I always thought it was a piece of theology, but Avalon Sunset was still a way away). Actually, it is a Morrison asking for help and it is good but nothing special. It feels like he can crank em out in his sleep, unlike, say, “Behind The Ritual” -a song with a dynamic sense of the mythic.
Van recently noted that the late great Bobby Womack (my concert of the year in 2013, reviewed here) asked him to sing on one of Bobby’s songs but it didn’t happen. You would think that this meeting of two of the most soulful voices would’ve happened earlier, what we should have got was a full album. But at least the Van-Womack duet is here now and it is wonderful, everything the terrible Michael Buble couldn’t begin to bring to “Real Real Gone”, Womack brings to “Peace Of Mind” -a punchy, upbeat r&b workout with Van and Bobby trading off on lines before bringing it home together.
Much better than the dowdy 1991 version, if this is the last new recording we get from Womack I can live with it.
Grade: A
