The sermons poked out of the songs like busted bed springs: Van Morrison livestream reviewed

Over the decades, Van Morrison’s role within the tower of song has shifted from chief visionary officer to head of complaints. It’s not a promotion. The title track of his new album, Latest Record Project, Volume 1, is a rebuke to those who insist on living in an artist’s past rather than his present. A laudable sentiment, perhaps, but one less easy to put into practice when Morrison’s present consists of 28 tracks which hone an already ornery world view to a paranoic peak. When he isn’t griping about his divorce he’s peddling half-baked conspiracy theories, sneering at internet users and ‘media junk’, and bitching about modern music, crooked politicians and false prophets.

Musically, Morrison’s anti-lockdown, mask-burning meltdown could have been rather fun. Instead, his new album is too long and a bit lazy, his ire wrapped in rote, off-the-peg blues, soul and R&B shapes, while his tendency to portray himself as an honest tiller of the earth — raking the topsoil, never digging too deep — in a world of crooks founders in banality.