Richard Thompson - Sweet Warrior

Another album, another classic

On his first record with a full electric band backing him since 2003’s The Old Kit Bag, all the familiar Richard Thompson components are present and correct: classy all-round musicianship surrounding deft guitar lines, a powerfully articulate and emotive voice, and lyrics packed with intelligence, maturity and high-definition quality imagery.

Thompson’s contribution to an ever-growing catalogue of songs about the Iraq war is Dad’s Gonna Kill Me (as in Baghdad), a slowburning blues crawler told from the point of view of a soldier who realises “nobody loves me here” and cynically concludes “at least we’re winning on the Fox evening news”. At the other end of the spectrum is the frivolous Bad Monkey, an hilarious jugband twist which shares much of its DNA with Thommo’s long-standing live favourite Tear-Stained Letter. There’s also a five-star addition to his formidable canon of lost love songs, the delicate and affecting Take Care The Road You Choose. The end of an affair has never sounded so beautiful.

The man’s been on such a prolific run of form for the last decade-and-a-half that even the most dedicated followers might have been bracing themselves for a dip in standards (it’s the law of averages). Instead, they’ll find themselves speechless as Thompson casually raises the bar once again, forever challenging himself and leaving the lion’s share of his contemporaries rooted to the spot and staring up at him in awe.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Proper | PRPCD 032

Reviewed by Terry Staunton
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