This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
After spending the last decade producing acclaimed albums for the likes of U2, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson, Daniel Lanois could have been excused for going big. For forgetting his roots. For putting out a slick, superb-sounding vanity project jammed with superstar cameos, pristine performances and songs co-written by the highest-paid hired guns around. The fact he has done none of these things — in fact, if anything he’s done the exact opposite — makes his long-awaited third solo album Shine all the more deserving of the praise it’s doubtlessly destined to garner.
Emphasizing truth and beauty over perfection and commerciality, Lanois offers up 13 atmospherically textured and emotionally rich rootsy works that fall midway between confessions, parables, prayers and hymns. The warm intimacy and endearing melodies of songs like I Love You (featuring a typically angelic backup vocal by Harris) and Falling At Your Feet (co-starring Bono) and As Tears Roll By (built around an old Charley Patton guitar sample) are matched in magnifence — and even complemented artistically — by Lanois’s distinctive sonic constructs. Swelling pedal steel guitars drift atop skittering, scritch-scratchy electrobeats; chilly ambient instrumentals compete with the vocal tracks for your attention; underproduced drums are jammed onto one side of the mix and guitar onto the other; and everything takes a backseat to Daniel’s dusty, bravely effects-free vocals.
In general, most of Shine’s tracks sound like demos that were recorded in a basement late at night by candlelight in a burst of inspiration and mastered without any thought to fixing their mistakes or tweaking their sounds. In other words, it sounds as immediate and honest as the moment it was created — and probably is. You can’t ask more than that of your art. Or of Daniel Lanois.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ktzX2xy4EWS-X9R36GftVSeeKpweyfNow
