Despite the fact that only three of the songs here are composed by him – or perhaps because of it – Pay the Devil is the most distinctive of all Van Morrison’s 2000s albums. Following on from his collaboration with Linda Gail Williams, You Win Again, this is a country album, and consists almost entirely of covers of songs written by or associated with such luminaries as Hank Williams, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Webb Pierce and Conway Twitty. You can also hear the influence of Ray Charles, since three of the tracks are taken from his two volumes of Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. Van released the album in Nashville, on what the city declared to be Van Morrison Day, and appeared at the iconic Ryman Auditorium to perform it live.

In every way this approach works for Van. By this stage in the 2000s his original compositions weren’t consistent, so a covers album takes the pressure off his songwriting a bit. Country is also a good vehicle for Van’s growing bitterness and world-weariness, making it feel less individual and indulgent, and more like a formal feature of the music. Paradoxically, that allows a real sense of vulnerability to come through, most memorably on his cover of Rodney Crowell’s “Till I Gain Control Again,” one of the rawest renditions in his catalogue. Yet country also injects his voice with a rambling, rollicking quality, giving him a pretext to keep it short and sweet without feeling pressure to lapse into mystic digressions.

It doesn’t hurt either that Van has a wonderful Irish-American croon – and he gives full rein to his croon here, allowing his voice to warble in some of the highest, most lonesome registers of his career. At times he seems to reach the most plaintive upper range of his voice, bringing it to the point of breaking, usually on songs that are about heartbreak. Given that his voice, like so many of his singer-songwriter peers, has only grown gruffer and grittier with age, that’s a doubly vulnerable gesture, and makes for one of his most personal and seductive latter-day albums. Like the best country artists he realises that “voice” lies in interpretation as much as composition and his interpretation of every one of these classics is spot on, splitting the difference beautifully between each song’s lineage and his own idiosyncrasies.