After scoring big with "The Whole of The Moon" from the album This is the Sea in 1985, Karl Wallinger left The Waterboys to form World Party and Mike Scott moved to Ireland and caught the Irish traditional bug. The result is a change from the Big Rock of earlier efforts to the pastoral beauty of Fisherman's Blues. The title track is a mandolin and fiddle deal that sets the tone for the album. "We Will Not Be Lovers", the album's best track, fuses earlier Big Rock with Irish trad to create the best example of the kind of music Clannad has been trying for years to make. Van Morrison's "Sweet Thing" gets its best cover here, with McCartney's "Black Bird tacked on as a coda for a treat. "World Party", a remnant of the Wallinger era sounds very eighties (and very World Party too), while "And a Bang On The Ear" got resurrected for 1998 Oscar winning film Good Will Hunting.

***** of 5