No Guru No Method No Teacher [Original recording remastered]

He did so by revisiting the sound and mood (and sidemen) of two of his most acclaimed records, so often cited in reviews of this album that I won't mention them. Suffice it to say that those two records everybody mentions are masterpieces the likes of which have rarely been seen (or heard) in popular music. And No Guru...well, it's not.

In fact, it's a pallid imitation. The similarities are all completely superficial. The familiar features are inviting, in a manner of speaking, at first: there's the haunted, echo-laden pastoral mood, the distant cascades of ethereal soprano sax, a steadily growing sense of mourning and absence. But I suspect that the absence that's being mourned is of melody.

The usually sycophantic David Fricke opened his review of this record in Rolling Stone with "No tunes," and the blessed Byrds scribe got it right: there are a handful of engaging songs here, but not many, and none of those are great or nearly up to the standard Van himself set for his later period just a few years earlier. The opener, a mostly two-chord waltz called "Got to Go Back", will either strike the listener as drearily nostalgic and repetitive or genuinely moving, and I tend to vacillate depending on my own mood. It's still probably the best single song on here, with classic-period pianist Jeff Labes's quietly insinuating counter-melodies and a memorable soprano line. (Another early-seventies sideman, eclectic guitarist John Plantania, plays two or three notes elsewhere on the album, with most of the guitar handled by Chris Michie of Beautiful Vision fame.)

But the cracks in the record show on that song. It may engage the emotions, but it's not particularly interesting, for one; and furthermore, Van's voice is in very bad shape here, and drenched in echo to compensate, and a lot of this record drags simply because he has trouble staying in key. He seems aware of these limitations, manifesting themselves for the first time in the career of one of pop's greatest singers: so at times he just yells (e.g., "In the Garden") or mumbles (e.g. "Oh the Warm Feeling").

Van being in weak voice is the biggest disappointment here, but the rest of the songs are pretty weak too. "Thanks For the Information" attempts at early-Van poetic cleverness but is really just uninspired, and though it has a memorable chorus it's also a familiar chorus and the song completely overstays its welcome at nearly eight minutes. With Michie's guitar work very prominent it's the only contemporary-sounding song on the album, and therefore has dated the worst. Some of the other songs are so nondescript that they almost disappear: "Here Comes the Knight" is a clever title but also the umpteenth reuse of the "She Gives Me Religion" verse melody, and the bridge is alarmingly tuneless; and does anybody remember what "Foreign Window" is about? Van could be a great poet, and he's inarguably a brilliant songwriter, but this is not one of his finest hours.

Some of the less-ambitious numbers come off nicely: the strangely-harmonized folk number "One Irish Rover" is almost mesmerizing, and boasts a devastatingly innocent electric-piano melody for an intro. (Yes, that means a glorified toss-off has four different engaging melodies, including the bridge, whereas several songs here don't even have one!). And the semi-rousing R&B number "Ivory Tower" ends the album on an unanticipated, unrelated high assuming the listener can hear past Van's unspeakably self-righteous lyrics.

No Guru, No Method, No Teacher...no narrative cohesion, no genuinely great tunes, no particularly incisive lyrics, no vigorous libidinous performances, no earth-shaking vocal performances, no sex, no drugs, no rock and roll, no trace of what makes Van Morrison an important talent. Van still had entertaining albums left in him (the lovely Avalon Sunset, Enlightenment, and the new What's Wrong With This Picture) but this isn't the right place to look for one.

He did so by revisiting the sound and mood (and sidemen) of two of his most acclaimed records, so often cited in reviews of this album that I won't mention them. Suffice it to say that those two records everybody mentions are masterpieces the likes of which have rarely been seen (or heard) in popular music. And No Guru...well, it's not.

In fact, it's a pallid imitation. The similarities are all completely superficial. The familiar features are inviting, in a manner of speaking, at first: there's the haunted, echo-laden pastoral mood, the distant cascades of ethereal soprano sax, a steadily growing sense of mourning and absence. But I suspect that the absence that's being mourned is of melody.

The usually sycophantic David Fricke opened his review of this record in Rolling Stone with "No tunes," and the blessed Byrds scribe got it right: there are a handful of engaging songs here, but not many, and none of those are great or nearly up to the standard Van himself set for his later period just a few years earlier. The opener, a mostly two-chord waltz called "Got to Go Back", will either strike the listener as drearily nostalgic and repetitive or genuinely moving, and I tend to vacillate depending on my own mood. It's still probably the best single song on here, with classic-period pianist Jeff Labes's quietly insinuating counter-melodies and a memorable soprano line. (Another early-seventies sideman, eclectic guitarist John Plantania, plays two or three notes elsewhere on the album, with most of the guitar handled by Chris Michie of Beautiful Vision fame.)

But the cracks in the record show on that song. It may engage the emotions, but it's not particularly interesting, for one; and furthermore, Van's voice is in very bad shape here, and drenched in echo to compensate, and a lot of this record drags simply because he has trouble staying in key. He seems aware of these limitations, manifesting themselves for the first time in the career of one of pop's greatest singers: so at times he just yells (e.g., "In the Garden") or mumbles (e.g. "Oh the Warm Feeling").

Van being in weak voice is the biggest disappointment here, but the rest of the songs are pretty weak too. "Thanks For the Information" attempts at early-Van poetic cleverness but is really just uninspired, and though it has a memorable chorus it's also a familiar chorus and the song completely overstays its welcome at nearly eight minutes. With Michie's guitar work very prominent it's the only contemporary-sounding song on the album, and therefore has dated the worst. Some of the other songs are so nondescript that they almost disappear: "Here Comes the Knight" is a clever title but also the umpteenth reuse of the "She Gives Me Religion" verse melody, and the bridge is alarmingly tuneless; and does anybody remember what "Foreign Window" is about? Van could be a great poet, and he's inarguably a brilliant songwriter, but this is not one of his finest hours.

Some of the less-ambitious numbers come off nicely: the strangely-harmonized folk number "One Irish Rover" is almost mesmerizing, and boasts a devastatingly innocent electric-piano melody for an intro. (Yes, that means a glorified toss-off has four different engaging melodies, including the bridge, whereas several songs here don't even have one!). And the semi-rousing R&B number "Ivory Tower" ends the album on an unanticipated, unrelated high assuming the listener can hear past Van's unspeakably self-righteous lyrics.

No Guru, No Method, No Teacher...no narrative cohesion, no genuinely great tunes, no particularly incisive lyrics, no vigorous libidinous performances, no earth-shaking vocal performances, no sex, no drugs, no rock and roll, no trace of what makes Van Morrison an important talent. Van still had entertaining albums left in him (the lovely Avalon Sunset, Enlightenment, and the new What's Wrong With This Picture) but this isn't the right place to look for one.