Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 08/08/05
Label: Cooking Vinyl

It was in 1981 that Richard Thompson last recorded an acoustic studio album and he was still a resident on British shores. Now, after 15 years of reflection from the eternal sunshine of his adopted Los Angeles he has again cut the electrics for a set of songs that turn their attention back across the Atlantic.

The unsettling mix of bitterness and numb longing with which he addresses his homeland in songs like "A Solitary Life" suggest that L.A. is for Thompson a form of self-imposed exile, an unhappy compromise. But, then, we would see it that way. After all, the British are understandably protective of this rock deity who, like all our favourite American survivors, has maintained something of the outsider spirit. Notoriously stormy of temperament, at least in song, Thompson, like Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, has earned his right to be a rock grump.

As a founder member of Fairport Convention, he was behind their finest records - "Liege And Lief", "What We Did On Our Holidays" and "Unhalfbricking" - and then went on to define the limits of emotional possibility working with his wife, Linda Thompson, on five intense albums. From the acclaimed "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight" to "Shoot Out The Lights". The latter, recorded as they were going through divorce, defines the blood raw sonic texture of his most powerful music.

For "Front Parlour Ballads", Thompson appears on many songs to have returned in spirit to his childhood, growing up in North London. So, he sings of the Thames, of misspent childhoods romping on the bombsites of Mutton Street and dull, pewter skies over North West 11. Frequently, though, his writing is heavy-handed and the parochial observations ring somewhat hollow.

Despite that he's lost none of his graceful way with a guitar and is still capable of reasserting the magic of the most archaic song structures. The grey-hued folk of "How Does Your Garden Grow?" is lifted by the wonderful dance of fingers across frets. Similarly, the sombre "Cressida" finds magic in Thompson's elegant playing, the acoustic guitar parts over-dubbed in his home studio to form a subtle alchemy.

Song after song, this is hardly an album that boasts of its riches but, in a determinedly low-key fashion, the music asserts itself in honest textures captured in naked performance.

    by James Poletti