The early music of the Waterboys was (much) too similar to U2’s until Mike Scott and company plumbed their Irish roots with 1988’s Fisherman’s Blues. Nevertheless, with the retrospect of forty years now, This Is The Sea (released 9/16/85) rivals Bono and the boys at their own game of exaltation: it is a genuinely majestic piece of work, fittingly described as “The Big Music” by the band itself on their previous (sophomore) album, A Pagan Place.
Abbreviated tracks, including less than two minutes of “Spirit,” offer some respite from the intensity Scott and his comrades conjure up when left to their own devices, as happens during the title song. Running nearly six and a half minutes, this cut is the longest here, but that’s only appropriate as it is the finale of the original release. A live take of that tune is one of only three duplicates on the expanded 2CD package of 2004, and it is actually shorter than the studio take, suggesting Scott was learning as he went along.
Further evidence of the durability and emotional resonance of the LP’s material, five numbers from This Is The Sea recur regularly in recent years’ Waterboys’ setlists. “The Whole of the Moon” is not one of them, but its forty-year-old rendition unfolds with a passion grounded in personal meaning even as the uplifting trumpets of Roddy Lorimar signify a deep-seated longing to learn and absorb life’s lessons.
Mike Scott’s echoed voice is appropriately suffused with yearning, while the addition of backing vocals anchors his emotionalism, a prominent element of the performance ratified by Anthony Thistlewaite’s squawling saxophone. Such contributions as that evince the Waterboys’ readily discernible roots. Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks is a clear source of inspiration as the bedrock repetition of “Old England” hearkens to The Belfast cowboy’s mesmerizing foray,s such as “Listen to the Lion.” Still, the thrashing likes of “Be My Enemy” is also emblematic of the punk rock of which the bandleader was so fond and the frenzied drumming of Kevin Wilkinson is certainly suitable for the performance.
The prevalence of Celtic overtones began on the very next Waterboys album, but it waxed and waned over the years as Mike Scott recorded under his own name as well as the group’s. Later titles like 2020’s Good Luck, Seeker rely almost as much on the exhumation of vault material as on new content, but that’s merely an extension of the encyclopedic approach the Waterboys utilized on This Is the Sea.
Nevertheless, as with the debut EP and its follow-up, the unity of the Waterboys on this forty-year-old effort is an undeniable virtue. And the bond of self-sufficiency endured beyond just this lucid LP: striking as is his work on “The Pan Within,” violinist Steve Wickham would continue as a member into the Celtic forays and on to the new millennium and beyond.
Having just joined the ensemble for this project, Karl Wallinger would subsequently depart and work as World Party, yet his roles here are crucial, if only because his presence tempered Mike Scott’s tendency toward overstatement so evident on this first cut, “Don’t Bang The Drum.” But there’s also his celeste on “Trumpets” too, a small touch that distinguishes this track as one of the most memorable on This Is The Sea.
In his liner notes for the aforementioned archive package, titular leader Scott assigns plentiful credit to engineers John Brand and Mick Glossop, both of whom presumably aided in maintaining the focus. Accordingly, when also taking into account the complete recordings collection of 2024 (renamed 1985), the distilled clarity of the forty-two plus minutes as issued four decades ago hardly a surprise.
