Perfecting their ‘Big Music’ sound, The Waterboys’ third LP This Is The Sea housed their most famous single, The Whole Of The Moon
© Patrick Durand
“
We
always had too many songs for records,” says Waterboys leader and chief sonic architect Mike Scott. “We had enough to do double LPs every time because I wrote a lot of songs and the band was very creative. It was a good quality problem – a first-class problem to have.”
You certainly won’t hear Waterboys fans complaining about this abundance of material, especially given the treasures sprinkled throughout a new deluxe boxset celebrating 1985’s This Is The Sea. Across six CDs and 95 tracks – which includes a whopping 64 previously unreleased songs that encompass early demos, alternate versions, studio outtakes and live recordings plus an ornate 220-page book – 1985 is a comprehensive dive into the years-long journey that resulted in the Waterboys’ third album.