For the first time in over a decade, Morrison elected to release an album that consists entirely of new material, and the result is something that sounds fresh and invigorated. Serving as an ideal companion piece to his 2005 record Magic Time, Van uses the eleven tracks on Keep It Simple to explore his myriad influences that he’s drawn from since the beginning of his career — R&B, the blues, traditional Irish, gospel, jazz — and revisit the well of his usual lyrical themes. “School Of Hard Knocks” is a standard issue airing of paranoid grievances against those who “brainwashed the suckers” with their “propaganda” and how he got “left high and dry” after crashing against the rocks. But there’s a liveliness in the track that has been missing in these sorts of songs for some time. His ode to teetotalism “Don’t Go To Nightclubs Anymore” is a fun, bluesy rejoinder to “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and sounds like he’s liberated from the drink rather than oppressed by the lifestyle change. And the title track is both a cautionary tale and a powerful lesson — “We got to keep it simple to save ourselves”. Seems like he’s figured quite a bit out after four decades in the game.