Detailed item info | Track listing | 1. New Life
2. Glastonbury Song
3. Preparing To Fly
4. Return Of Pan
5. Corn Circles
6. Suffer
7. Winter Winter
8. Love And Death
9. Spiritual City
10. Wonders Of Lewis
11. Return Of Jimi Hendrix
12. Good News
| | Details | | Number of CDs: | 1 | | Producer: | Bill Price | | Recording type: | Studio | | Distributor: | Universal Music | | Recording mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | AAD |
| | Album notes | Personnel: Mike Scott (vocals, guitars, keyboards, percussion, effects); Billy Connolly (spoken vocals); Chris Bruce (guitar); Ljubisa "Lubi" Ristic (sitar); Caroline Lavelle (cello); George Stathos (Greek clarinet); James Campagnola (saxophone); Scott Thunes, Kenny Aaronson, Brian Stanley (bass); Jim Keltner, Carla Azar, Thommy Price, Steve Holly (drums); Bashiri Johnson (congas, talking drum, shaker, tambourine); Jere Peters (rattle); Jules Shear, Pal Shazar, Laura Lee Ash, Darwin Buschman M.D., Roger Greenawalt, Fiona Prendergast, Terry Wetmore, Tawatha Agee, Cindy Mizelle, Fonzi Thornton (background vocals).Engineers include: Bill Price, Niko Bolas, Joe Blaney.DREAM HARDER was the Waterboys' sixth and last album, barring a number of posthumous releases. Opening with the crunching power chords of "The New Life," it finds Mike Scott with a largely new backing band, a rekindled love of guitar, and a notion to move away from the Irish-influenced folk music of the past several Waterboys records. The combination of these factors makes for one of the loosest, most relaxed Waterboys outings since the band's early days. Standouts include the insistent, rolling pace of "Glastonbury Song," the oddly appropriate pairing of guitar heroics and dub rhythms of "Suffer," and the majestic "Love And Death," which is carried along, like all the best Waterboys songs, on Scott's earnest vocals. Also of note is "Spiritual City," which includes a looping, trance-like sitar and scat vocals. Overall, DREAM HARDER provides both a solid entry into, and fitting end to, the Waterboys saga; it's also an important signpost to Scott's subsequent solo career.
| | Editorial reviews | 4 Stars - Excellent - ...[leader Mike] Scott revels in ecstatic awakenings and epiphanies closely related to images revolving around new relationships, marriage and birth...has a gift for matching haunting melodic fragments to the well-turned phrase...
Rolling Stone (07/08/1993)
3 Stars - Good - ...a 13-track big dipper ride through God, change, Ireland, tablas, Glastonbury, Scotland, sitars, Greek mythology, corn circles, love, death, pan-pipes, poetry, stone circles, Jimi Hendrix, New York, kitchen sink guitars and all manner of oddball, offbeat ideas...veers maniacally from the lovable to the laughable...
Q (07/01/1993)
Ranked #38 in Melody Maker's list of the `Albums Of The Year' for 1993.
Melody Maker (01/01/1994)
...This is the album Waterboys fans have waited nearly eight years for....
Melody Maker (05/29/1993)
8 - Excellent - ...DREAM HARDER is some party--the kind of trip that reminds you how every Waterboys record should have the legend `To Be Continued...' scratched into the run-off groove....
NME (05/29/1993)
4 Stars - Excellent - ...[leader Mike] Scott revels in ecstatic awakenings and epiphanies closely related to images revolving around new relationships, marriage and birth...has a gift for matching haunting melodic fragments to the well-turned phrase...Q (7/93, p.96) - 3 Stars - Good - ...a 13-track big dipper ride through God, change, Ireland, tablas, Glastonbury, Scotland, sitars, Greek mythology, corn circles, love, death, pan-pipes, poetry, stone circles, Jimi Hendrix, New York, kitchen sink guitars and all manner of oddball, offbeat ideas...veers maniacally from the lovable to the laughable...Melody Maker (1/1/94, p.77) - Ranked #38 in Melody Maker's list of the `Albums Of The Year' for 1993.Melody Maker (5/29/93, p.33) - ...This is the album Waterboys fans have waited nearly eight years for....NME (5/29/93, p.31) - 8 - Excellent - ...DREAM HARDER is some party--the kind of trip that reminds you how every Waterboys record should have the legend `To Be Continued...' scratched into the run-off groove....
Rolling Stone (07/08/1993)
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