Van Morrison
The Healing Game (Polydor) (star) (star) (star) 1/2
Over the last decade Van Morrison has established a pattern of following each quality album with a lesser work. Coming on the heels of his disappointing 1995 album “Days Like This,” Morrison’s new “The Healing Game” catches him on an upward arc. In fact, this is his most exuberant-sounding album since 1979’s “Wavelength.” Morrison acknowledges as much on the majestic title song: “Here I am again/Back on the corner again/Back where I belong/Where I’ve always been.” Gone are the mystical and religious overtones of much of his recent work, replaced by sunny love ballads (“If You Love Me”) and odes to his Belfast youth (“It Once Was My Life”). On “Burning Ground” Van rocks harder than he has in years, while the Celtic-tinged “Piper At the Gates of Dawn” harks back to his 1988 “Irish Heartbeat” collaboration with the Chieftains.