Roll with the Punches
| Van Morrison
Roll with the Punches
Roll with the Punches is the 37th studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison.[4] The album was released on 22 September 2017 by Caroline Records. The album features five original songs and ten covers.-Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
2017. Van Morrison’s 37th album is a thorough exploration of the blues. It’s crisp, precise, and reveals his ability to inhabit classic songs while paying respect to their form.
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Spill Magazine
This album, as with his last few, finds Van still exploring rocking blues, something he does very very well. Roll With The Punches features mainly covers of classic old blues and rock and roll oldies, but Morrison contributes five new songs to the collection.
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All Music
2017. On Roll with the Punches, Morrison revisits his roots without nostalgia or overt reverence. For him, these songs are as vital and important to him as his own songs. The spontaneity on this set is more akin to a live record than a studio effort, making it a most welcome entry in his catalog.
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HIGHRESAUDIO
With Roll With The Punches, his thirty-seventh album, the now older van Morrison presents itself in absolute top form and is thus in direct competition with his younger self of a few decades earlier. As in his best days, he grinds words between his teeth to mash and spits them out well chewed out again.
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All About Jazz
2017. Meanwhile, the readily identifiable sound of the frontman's voice, along with in-the-pocket arrangements, rendered with great facility by an extensive roster of players: "Fame" and "Too Much Trouble," subtly depict Van Morrison's perpetually prickly demeanor . . ., not to mention his jaundiced view of his commercial prospects, and thus belie the easygoing motion of the singer and his band.
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Slant Magazine
2017. Rather than treat the blues as a stuffy, academic genre exercise, Roll with the Punches plays like a party album.
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Music OMH
2017. Morrison does not have the same vocal power or raw intensity as a performer as he did when younger, but his voice has become deeper and richer in tone in later years. Roll with the Punches may show him playing it safe but there’s every sign that the prolific 72-year-old has plenty of more rounds left in him.
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Pop Matters
2017. Calling Morrison enigmatic is like calling candy sweet: it’s the defining characteristic. Morrison’s best music has always been complex and mysterious.
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Relix
2017. For all of the transcendent, meticulously crafted stream-of-consciousness vocal wanderings he has made over the years, and for all of his ethereal and profound, thinking-person’s wordsmithing, Van Morrison doesn’t always sound like he’s having fun. But put him in a recording studio with some old, trusted friends and set him loose on a passel of blues, and the joy radiates.
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Comm Radio
2017. The album, titled Roll with the Punches, is an interesting jazz and blues compilation that the singer filled with old time soul covers and 5 new pieces written by Van the Man himself. Not only did the album come as a surprise, but the large amount of cover songs did as well.
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NZ Herald
2017. . . . Roll with the Punches finds him in fine fettle, and with some heavy lifting help in the shape of guitarist Jeff Beck, keyboardist Georgie Fame, and fellow 60s hit-maker Chris Farlowe, plus his always reliable band.
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The Irish Times
2017. At 72 Van Morrison shows no sign of curtailing his musical output – nor, indeed, its quality. His 37th studio album treads a similar line in blues, soul and rock’n’roll to last year’s Keep Me Singing, although 10 of these 15 songs are covers.
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Evening Standard
2017. Less a venture into the slipstream, more a cosy trip down memory lane, Van the Man’s 37th studio album sees him revisit his first love: the blues.
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Blues Magazine
He bends a little after the less successful period and now comes back with this sublime album. Fifteen beautiful songs, five of which are written by yourself, let you enjoy Van Morrison in top form for an hour.
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Scoop News
2017. For his thirty-seventh studio album, The Belfast Cowboy returns to his roots by celebrating his passion for the blues and the influence it has had over his fifty-year career. Like last year’s Blue and Lonesome by the Rolling Stones, Roll With The Punches offers new interpretations of both well-known and less familiar songs
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STACK
2017. Van Morrison’s affection for the blues, R&B, gospel and jazz music which he first heard on his parents’ record player growing up in Belfast is palpable on his latest release.
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BourbonAndVinyl
2017. One thing I can say about ‘Roll With the Punches’ is that Van sounds like he’s having a lot of fun. He’s clearly completely engaged. Part of that might be that he invited a bunch of friends into the studio with him. It’s like Van decided to throw a laid-back blues party.
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Classic Rock
2017. For almost exactly a year, the Northern Irish bard has taken his time since KEEP ME SINGING - to deliver ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES as its counterpart to its predecessor. At that time it was full-bodied, soothing soul, now it's electric blues.
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Bernard Zuel Music Journalist
2017. Roll With The Punches - five originals and some favourite blues and soul - is an unfussy, old-without-sounding-tired collection that could have been phoned in and still sounded ok but works at a better than average level.
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Sentireascoltare
2017. It is a Van Morrison at ease and not sparing, that of Roll With The Punches , a musician in a good moment of form . . . which also shows an excellent balance in the arrangement phase (his artistic production of the album).
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Sounds and Books
2017. Roll With The Punches is the 37th studio album of the Northern Irish master and brings together ten Rhythm and Blues cover versions as well as five new Morrison pieces. "Van The Man" is in great shape and the Blues is in the blood of the 72-year-old anyway.
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The Inquirer Daily News Philly
2017. Van Morrison's got the blues. Across the 15 tracks of Roll with the Punches, the Belfast Cowboy dives deep into the kind of blues and R&B that has informed the more earthy of his work over a decades-long career.
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recensione - Tomtomrock.it
2017. Roll With The Punches is above all a (beautiful) cover disc.
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Written In Music
2017. Sir Van also naturally has a blues voice that creaks and attracts attention. The songs presented here are mainly blues grooves, but also swing and soul, complemented by emotion ( Teardrops From My Eyes ). In short: Van The Man, as we like to continue to know him.
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Escuta Essa Review
2017. But in Roll With The Punches , the singer produced the album seeking a more honest, sincere, traditionalist and literal approach to the nostalgia that has been going through his work for many records.
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Amoeba Music
2017. On this love letter to the blues, Morrison blends original compositions with covers of blues classics by T-Bone Walker, Mose Allison, and Sam Cooke, among others. . . . A solid collection of tunes that fit Morrison’s voice like a glove, as well as a worthy album in an absolutely legendary career.
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Down At The Crossroads
2017. . . . Roll With the Punches, is an unashamed album of blues songs which pay tribute to the influence of the blues on his own body of work. This, Van Morrison’s 37th studio album, is one of the best blues album you’ll hear all year.
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Stereoboard
2017. . . . musical direction is probably Morrison’s most enduring skillset, and ‘Roll With the Punches’ demonstrates his rare talent as a bandleader, arranger and recruiter with energy and panache.
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Lexington Herald Leader
2017. . . . “Roll with the Punches,” the Irish musicians’ 37th studio album, barters in a sense of very real nostalgia: the rootsier kind that reaches back to the blues and soul influences that largely shaped him as a singer. Morrison has traveled these pathways before on past albums. He’s even taken earlier stabs at some of the songs that populate “Roll with the Punches.” But as a generous journey through vintage inspiration, the record is a total joyride.
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McAlester News-Capital
2017. On his album “Roll with the Punches,” Van Morrison proves once again that he’s a master of the blues. Although he’s dipped into the blues throughout his career, on this album all 15 songs are either straight blues songs or their close cousins.
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Jazz.pl
2017. This is an unusual, very " blues " Van Morrison record. It does not deviate from the basic sound of the legendary vocalist, but it is also stylistically very coherent, although not homogeneous. There is a lot of classic old blues , rhythm and blues but also nostalgia oldies rock and roll.
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