The Waterboys

Despite hailing from Edinburgh, Mike Scott became one of the central figures of Irish rock's renaissance during the '80s, leading the Waterboys to international acclaim and producing one bonafide classic album, 1988's Fisherman's Blues. The group's ever-changing line-up, combined with Scott's mercurial creative spirit, led to a slow fade in profile over the ensuing two decades. However, An Appointment With Mr. Yeats finds Scott completely focused for the first time in years, a result of his unwavering passion to set the poetry of William Butler Yeats to music. Scott and his current Waterboys line-up first attempted a full program of Yeats songs during a five-night run in Dublin in early 2010, with this album's 14 tracks being recorded a year later. This is plainly a labour of love for Scott and he throws himself into Yeats's words as completely as any he has written himself. The album's sound is just as magisterial, hearkening back to the band's earliest efforts, based on Scott's concept of "The Big Music." Predictably, not all of An Appointment With Mr. Yeats works ― at times, Scott's ever-present Bob Dylan inflections dominate ― but the album is a welcome return of an artist too often overlooked.