Fisherman’s Blues

Folk-klanken zijn vaak vrij uitbundig. Maar dit album weet de klanken zo 'normaal' te maken, dat het soms naar de achtergrond zakt. Al biedt dit album ook wel eens een nummer dat een feestje kan doorstaan. Met name de zang springt niet overdreven uit de band. Als het wat meer lijkt om de sterotype folk-zang, als bij When will we be married, vind ik het eigenlijk fijner. Toch wil ik de drie van dit album niet vergeetbaar noemen. Het is in totaal best een geinig plaatje.

This is quite reminiscent of the Pogues which I really enjoyed quite a lot. I am also enjoying this quite a lot, however it feels like this album is way too long and blends a little bit too much, so we'll give it a middle rating of 3, not super great, but no bad by any means either.

Pre Listen:
Based on the name of both the band and album, I assume in order to fully experience this album, I need to put my waders on and get fishing. Will do. No idea who these guys are.

Notable Tracks:
This Land Is Your Land | Dunford's Fancy - Tied for my favorite tracks on the album. I'm a massive fan for this style of folk music. The sort you hear live in a local pub by chance that cements itself in your head as a cherished memory.
Jimmy Hickey's Waltz - Another highlight, not quite my favorite due to the slower tempo, but great nonetheless.
The Stolen Child - Not a big fan of what I'd call "Story Rock" typically, and this one falls into that. Not a big fan of the refrain, the whole song just feels like a wet napkin. Least favorite track. Fiddle work is solid tho.
Sweet Thing - Beatles referenced oh my goodness gracious oh my good heavens.

Post Listen:
Definitely wasn't what I was expecting. I have a massive soft spot for Scottish/Irish Folk Music, as I live in the Appalachian region of the U.S., where immigrants from those countries played a huge role in shaping our folk music. When the first song played, I got quite excited and went to look where this band was from, and understood everything when I found out.

That said, the album isn't entirely traditional folk. I enjoyed it the most during the more folkish songs, and the least when it was closer to traditional rock. The fiddler is great, the acoustic guitar is pretty good, the vocalist harmonizes well sometimes. I'm incredibly torn on giving this album a 4 or 3. I think I'll give it a 4 for now, but I might come back to it once I've listened to more albums, and I've had time to sit on it.

EDIT - Sat on it, giving it a 3 ultimately. The more folkish songs were all I remembered after a while, the rest just really isn't as great.

I liked maybe 4 songs and the rest bored me rigid.
Like a limper version of The Pogues.

Context worth naming: seeing The Waterboys live at Bourbon and Beyond — the Hammond organ player in particular looking like he was having the time of his life — gave this record a warmer entry point than it might otherwise have had. That experience is real and worth acknowledging. It just doesn't change what the studio record actually delivers.
Fisherman's Blues sits at a genuinely appealing intersection — Irish and Celtic folk tradition, Van Morrison-influenced spiritual urgency, and acoustic warmth that connects to the Americana lineage. When it hits those marks the results are undeniable. The title track is joyful, driving, and fiddle-forward in a way that's almost impossible not to respond to physically, and the best moments on disc one show a band fully inhabiting a sound with real conviction and personality.
The problem is consistency. Hit or miss is the honest description — genuine peaks surrounded by stretches where the record coasts on atmosphere rather than delivering the same energy. The unevenness that keeps so many folk-adjacent records in the three-star tier is present here too, and the record player test came back clean: not something you'd reach for by choice despite the affection for the live show.
The Hammond player was clearly having a helluva time. The album, taken front to back, earns a respectful three.

Great.. 10 members, a mandolin, and an accordion. I could tell from the picture on the cover that I was going to hate this. I was right.

Didn’t like the first track, rest of the album was way better than I expected. Absolutely loved the second track.

The fusion of genres/sound was fun for a few song, but got a bit much.

Better than I was expecting

I remember fisherman’s blues as being a cross between indie pop and Irish folk - and was surprised this album is more Van Morrison than the wonder stuff

I actually quite enjoyed the first two songs but then the initial optimism soon waned. Some of it was alright but I agree that the Pogues did it better.

I'm loving it so far but gosh golly is it long. Okay I'm like 10ish songs in now and I don't think I have the heart right now to finish this. I like it a lot, but not enough to listen to 2 hours.

A really interesting and fun album. I’d love to listen to it again. 4/5

Another album that, while being very good, just doesn't strike me personally. Fun Irish/Scottish folk rock though.

Pretty cool.

Not what I'd call a top tier album cover. There are a lot of boys in this band, it seems. I like the fiddley strings. This is a little mellow for my taste, but I guess it's fine. I like the overarching Boat theme. I never considered that Waterboys might mean, like "ocean-loving boys" and not the sports thing. Was not expecting to hear Beatles content ("Blackbird")! Despite(?) being folksy Scots Irish stuff, it reminds me a lot of Bruce Springsteen.

Could have been much shorter

You know what? I’m at a 10.

I’ll be the first person to tell you that this album’s length is its achilles heel – I think it would be a far more definitive 10 if it trimmed down just a few of the tracks & had a little more variety in the soundscape, but I simply enjoyed this far too much. It feels like the Pogues with more of a Springsteen-ish lean, allowing a lot more of the U.S. rock scene’s influence in the ‘80s to shape the album’s direction, while distinctly managing to keep a very Irish / Scottish feel to the whole thing.

Sure, it can get a little tiring when almost every track has such a confident & jig-worthy energy, but if you can maintain the stamina to not get tired of this soundscape, I think you’ll really fucking enjoy this. Is it a little top heavy? Oh, absolutely – “We Will Not Be Lovers” fucking blew me away, and you can argue the album quite literally peaked at track 2. Thankfully, the descent from that peak is minimal, with maybe only “Has Anybody Here Seen Hank?” standing out as the black sheep of the track list. It’s not bad, but Mike Scott just doesn’t really have a country twang in his voice like that. Besides that, I really liked everything here. I think the lyricism is usually great, the instrumentation is consistently strong (& occasionally really dazzling, especially with that damn violin), and even if Mike Scott doesn’t have a country twang, he’s got a great voice otherwise. His delivery really ties a lot of these tracks together.

My stamina after listening to this damn thing feels a bit shot, so in lieu of going track by track here, I’ll just cut to the chase – I think this is a REALLY great album, and I feel almost as blown away as I did after getting “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” back in October. I’ve never heard of The Waterboys before this, and apparently, their earlier stuff had way more of a “grandiose” rock lean behind it, which I kinda wanna check out for myself. It is a 10 for me, albeit one where I can see it possibly dropping down a little bit without that “first listen glow” behind it, but regardless, it’s somewhere above a 5, no matter what. This is a delightful discovery for me, and I’m very glad it’s on the list.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to listen to “We Will Not Be Lovers” about 10 more times.

Really enjoyed this one. I’d only ever heard the title track from it before and it’s a belter of a song.

There wasn’t any tracks I would say I didn’t enjoy but there wasn’t enough I really loved for me to give it top marks.

Top Track - When Will We Be Married

Lots of variety, but unfortunately most of it is still boring or annoying, and the album itself is 25 minutes too long.

2.0/5.0: Disappointing