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There are two producers you can trust to buy anything they have their names on no matter whether you know the artists or not; T-Bone Burnette and Daniel Lanois. The latter has got in ahead of his compatriot in relieving his fans of the decade spent waiting for his own album. T-Bone take note! And while we are here as this album arrived on my desk the same day as Bruce Cockburn’s new one, a Lanois produced Cockburn album to go with the two Burnette has done would be a tasty prospect. But back to the album at hand…

Shine is an album of the beauty of life and faith and the amazement of the transcendent when it sits, where it always does, in the midst of everyday earthly sadness. The place where those two realities meet is soundtracked by Lanois’ haunting atmospherics. It is as if the soundscapes that he creates, seemingly simple yet carefully layered, levitate in the air and then swirl around you like a angelic spirit soothing every seen and hidden part of you. 

The songs are also dealing with angels and beasts, people losing faith and looking for faith and those who have found it. It looks for reason and hope as the challenges of life blows hard against the skin wherein the soul lies. Shine itself seemed to be the term Lanois uses for God’s love that sustains; “In the end the thing that keeps me walking is your shine/Your shine in transmissions, your shine in decisions, your shine when I labor to new day, it's your shine…”

The clearest statement of faith is his duet with Bono that first appeared on the sadly neglected Million Dollar Hotel Soundtrack. A hymn that has obvious links to St. Paul’s incarnation hymn in Philippians chapter 2 with everything bowing at the feet of Christ, this a Dylanesque list of the everything that will fall at His feet. Filled with proverbial, spiritually insightful and often humorous couplets ­ like “Every teenager with acne/Every face that's spoiled by beauty” - it ends like with an question and answer: “in whom shall I trust/and how might I be still/teach me to surrender/not my will, thy will…”

The poise and poignancy of the music made word! The song has more of Lanois’ vocal than the previously available version but take it as read that Bono plays his part wonderfully.

It may be that a feeling of inferiority about his voice has limited Lanois’ output, though when you consider who he has produced in recent years (U2, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson etc) where would he have got the time anyway, but he makes music that is in perfect keeping with his croaked drawl. He uses it as a most effective instrument and marries it to the lonesome guitar laze quite wonderfully. The omnipresent Emmylou Harris also helps out on the opening I Love You but if you remember what Lanois did to her fantastic Wrecking Ball album then you will now how perfectly she fits. There is a sprawl of influences, the soul of As Tear Roll By alongside the Neil Young harmonies of Slow Giving and the mix of blues and folk throughout. 

When “I’ve been working downtown inside my troubles” and I am drawing towards midnight these are the sounds that will help me untangle the troubles and point me to the bright chinks of Shine. 

Steve Stockman 5/26/2003