Van Morrison: Latest Record Project Volume 1 review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

(Exile/BMG)
The veteran bluesman loudly wakes up the sheeple with this boring and paranoid double album, reminiscent of a dinner party with a bitter divorcee

Even a man as implacably opposed to lockdown as Van Morrison - who spent 2020 releasing songs rubbishing science as crooked facts", mocking people for wearing masks and describing the government as fascist bullies" while also invoking the Berlin Wall - might be forced to concede it had its advantages. After all, it gave him the time to write the material for Latest Record Project Volume 1, a 28-song, two-hour-plus opus that allows him to set out his latterday worldview more fully than any previous work.