Hard Nose the Highway
| Van Morrison
Hard Nose the Highway
Hard Nose the Highway is the seventh studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in 1973 (see 1973 in music). The album contains the single "Warm Love," a fan favourite. It is his second solo album to contain songs not written by Morrison. A cover version of the song "Bein' Green", usually associated with Kermit the Frog, is included, and a take of the traditional song "Purple Heather".-Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Rolling Stone
September 27, 1973. Hard Nose the Highway is psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent. Its surface pleasures are a little less than those of St. Dominic’s Preview and a great deal less than those of Tupelo Honey, while its lyric depths are richer and more accessible than those of either predecessor.
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All Music
Although it marks a decline from the astonishing run of five great albums Van Morrison had made from 1968 through 1972, Hard Nose the Highway is still a respectable, if uneven, effort, notably containing "Snow in San Anselmo" (which features the Oakland Symphony Chamber Chorus) and "Warm Love." Nevertheless, it marks the end of Morrison's greatest period of creativity and accomplishment.
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Pete Atkin
In concealing artlessness with art, Morrison merely follows the trend of most of the sophisticated rock in recent years. The result is technique deprived of expressive force, and a general pleasantness of effect which leaves you convinced that prettiness is the enemy of the beautiful. Hard Nose The Highway is a wonderfully accomplished album which will do everything for you except engage your mind.
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Stereogum
April 14, 2014. 1973's Hard Nose The Highway suffers somewhat unfairly in reputation, in the same way as the Rolling Stones' Goat's Head Soup. That is to say that it is a highly accomplished record with no shortage of highlights, but is nevertheless demonstrably less fully realized than the series of masterpieces that proceeded and followed it.
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Dereks Music Blog
August 22, 2011. . . . it’s an album with eight great songs on it, seven of which were written by Van, the exception being Bein’ Green. His lyrics on this album are some of his best. They’re highly evocative, with strong narratives. On Hard Nose The Highway, Van had assembled a really tight band, who played brilliantly throughout the album.
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Dan Burnette Album Reviews
March 17, 2016. It's funny, I can't say I love this guy, his vocals often get on my nerves. But when he has a solid track T.B. Sheets, Wild Night, Snow in San Alsemo, I've Been Working, The Way Young Lovers Do and so on there are a ton of other okay songs. This album is very consistent in it's underwhelming-ness. I mean I don't hate it, it just doesn't live up to that title track.
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Published by Rocks Back Pages
January 28, 2013. In terms of the Morrison canon, Hard Nose stands as the ante-penultimate entry in an incredible sequence of recordings wherein he attained varying peaks of wonderment.
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Robert Christgau
The relaxed rhythms are just lax most of the time, the vocal surprises mild after St. Dominic's Preview, the lyrics dumbest when they're more than mood pieces, and the song construction offhand except on "Warm Love."
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TIDAL Read
August 27, 2015. “Hard Nose the Highway is psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent. Its surface pleasures are a little less than those of St. Dominic’s Preview and a great deal less than those of Tupelo Honey, while its lyric depths are richer and more accessible than those of either predecessor.
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Aphoristic Album Reviews
Hard Nose The Highway isn’t Van Morrison’s strongest album by any stretch of the imagination; it’s the quietly under-achieving record between two milestones, but Morrison was in such good form at this time that even his under-achievements are worth hearing.
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Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews
A respectable, but very low-energy effort that never really rises to the level of Morrison's best albums. Lyrically it's somewhat interesting: there's the usual vivid imagery in the service of sentimentalism ("Autumn Song"), but also a couple of bitter 60s post-mortems ("The Great Deception") and some pure poetry ("Snow In San Anselmo").
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Adrian's Album Reviews
Moving back to 'Moondance' territory for 'The Great Deception', and whilst there are no out and out classic Morrison moments here perhaps, whilst 'Hard Nose The Highyway' isn't as friendly or funky as 'Moondance' or as sheerly magical as 'Astral Weeks' - this sits nicely in his catalogue.
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That Devil Music
September 9, 2016 . . . Hard Nose the Highway album, one that’s gotten drastically mixed reviews over the years. (In hindsight, this album may well have inspired the then-highly-uncommon decision to add two violinists, a viola player and a cellist to the touring lineup, as it was heavily enhanced with strings; in fact, three members of the touring quartet had appeared on several of its tracks.) The Highway material, while generally more down-tempo, proves compatible enough with Morrison’s previous catalog and offers occasional highlights.
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Vinyl Burn
April 14, 2018. Van Morrison’s Hard Nose The Highway isn’t one of Van’s best albums but that still means it’s really good. The quality of his albums in the 1970s measure up to just about anything else out there. Which is saying something given the amount of good music at that time. Morrison is one of the most prolific artists with 39 studio albums and 6 live albums.
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The Guardian
December 9, 2010. Music as therapy. That voice, the poetry of the lyrics, the arrangements. It all seemed to make sense, and I felt myself unknotting. When times are bad, I still play Hard Nose. I have it on CD, vinyl, and on my MP3 player. Plus, I still have the tape.
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