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 For Almost Anyone Else,
Four or Five Stars
Rumor and Sigh
Richard Thompson
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I dunno -- i've got a problem with RT's more recent
albums -- from about where Mitchell Froom enters the picture, i guess. I
feel as if they're over-produced, a bit too elaborate; just too fiddly compared
to his live shows.
On the other hand, i often feel that his sets with a band are a bit
over-elaborate and fiddly as opposed to his acoustic sets, too, so maybe
it's just that i simply prefer Richard in as simple a setting as possible
so that he has room to sort of stretch out and breathe, as it were, musically.
This may explain the three star rating; for most other
guitarist/singer/songwriter types, this would be a four or five star effort,
but for RT it feels as if he's limited and constrained by the overall production
values (though there are exceptions -- Now Read On).
That said, there are some wonderful songs on this album, and the standout
is "1952 Vincent Black Lightning", a strict-form acoustic folk-ballad of
the kind about the cunning outlaw and his marvellous horse... but here it's
a London spiv and his wonderful motorcycle. (Listen -- if all i had to do
to get a '52 Black Lightning was a couple armed robberies, i'd have already
given serious consideration to which local banks would be easiest...) Listening
here, it sounds like the guitar is overdubbed -- it sounds the same way when
he stands there on stage, just him and one acoustic guitar, plays
exactly the same lines,and makes it look easy.
"Don't Sit on My Jimmy Shands" is, as one reviewer has said, a one-joke polka,
but it's a good joke, and it is a fun song when RT does it
live.
"I Feel so Good" is scary scary scary -- skirling and slashing guitar chords
surround the story of a punk released from jail who plans to have all the
vicious fun he can on his First Night Out.
"I Misunderstood" -- oh, the times you thought you heard one thing and he/she
said another -- "I thought she was sayin' 'Good Luck' -- But she was sayin'
'Good-Bye' ..."
"Read About Love" lays open and then cauterises one of the sadder/darker
bits of our sick culture with brilliant guitar and biting lyrics -- all too
many young people today are getting their first lessons in love and/or sexuality
from places like movies and teevee and "Penthouse" and "Hustler" and
believing that it really is that way. The song's protagonist
knows that he did what he was supposed to for a wonderful
experience and doesn't understand why his partner, far from responding
rhapsodically, lies there and cries.
"God Loves a Drunk" is brilliant, dark, disturbing and sad.
A good solid outing, not his best, far from anyone's worst. |
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