Hymns to The Silence

Morrison's best album of the '90s still casually hangs out in the spiritual world that served as his home for most of his '80s material, but the mystical touches are at least kept in check for a good deal of the time. Better still is that Morrison sings with a passion that had crawled into laziness during big, and crucial, chunks of his career (most prominently the early to mid-'80s). The songs, or more accurately (as the title makes very clear) hymns, combine the elements that have guided Morrison's best albums – R&B, folk, pop, Celtic, rock, even gospel – for a satisfying journey through the mystic and the real…

Still on Top - The Greatest Hits is the third compilation album to be issued by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison in 2007. It was released October 22, 2007 in the UK in a 2CD album with 37 tracks and with a 3CD Digipak limited edition box set also available on initial release of the album in the UK. On October 29, 2007 it was listed at #2 on the U.K. Official Top 75 Albums, his highest charting ever. The album also charted at #3 on the Top 75 Albums in Ireland, his highest debut in that country. In its second week of release it topped the Swedish albums chart, and has since been certified gold.

On their wide musical journeys in the '80s, the Chieftains decided to collaborate with Van Morrison, who had an artistic peak at the end of the decade. The result was a highlight in both of their '80s productions: the traditional Irish Heartbeat, with Morrison on lead vocals and a guest appearance from the Mary Black. Morrisonand Moloney's production puts the vocals up front with a sparse background, sometimes with a backdrop of intertwining strings and flutes, the same way Morrison would later use the Chieftains on his Hymns to the Silence. The arrangement and the artist's engaged singing leads to a brilliant result, and these Irish classics are made very accessible without being transformed into pop songs…

Equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter and wild-eyed poet-sorcerer, Van Morrison is among popular music's true innovators, a restless seeker whose incantatory vocals and alchemical fusion of R&B, jazz, blues, and Celtic folk produced perhaps the most spiritually transcendent body of work in the rock & roll canon…