The welcome – and long overdue – return of the Master.  Richard Thompson is back with his first album in 6 years, and it’s a peach!

Release Date:  31^st May 2024

Label: New West Records

Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital

THE WAIT

It’s been a long time.  Too long.  At last, Richard Thompson – Fairport founder, national treasure, songwriter supreme, Officer of the Order of the British Empire and many observers’ nominee for the title of Greatest Guitarist of All Time is back with a new collection of brand new songs.  And, I’ll tell you what – it’s been worth the wait!

Ship to Shore is Richard’s 20^th solo album and first since the 2018’s acclaimed 13 Rivers . Six years is a long time to wait by anybody’s reckoning but when talking about an artist as normally prolific as Richard Thompson, such a period seems like an eternity.  There is a reason for the delay, of course: “COVID kind of halted everything for two-and-a-half years,” Richard explained.  But, happily, once he had started writing again, the songs poured down like silver.

AN AGE OLD FORMULA

Produced and recorded in Woodstock, NY, with help from Engineer Chris Bittner, Ship to Shore is a pared-back affair, a collection of twelve compact, easily-digestible songs that all, to one degree or another, contain the ingredients that you’d expect and desire from a Richard Thompson album: deep, dark and often darkly humorous lyrics, full, satisfying sound, engaging tunes that never go precisely where you expect them to and, perhaps best of all, oodles of soaring, mind-bending guitar solos.  Richard is joined by his regular comrades-in-arms: Bobby Eichorn on guitar, Taras Prodanuik on bass and Michael Jerome on drums, with contributions also from Zara Philips (harmony vocals) and David Mansfield (fiddle).  It’s not an extensive line-up, however it works wonderfully.  There are no gaping holes on Ship to Shore.

As he’s been doing throughout his career, Richard once again has no hesitation in plundering the styles and genres that have inspired him, as he willingly explains: “I liked the idea of having a strong base to work from and reaching out from there, and I think of my case as being British traditional music, but there’s also Scottish music; there’s Irish music.  There’s jazz and country and classical.  As far as I’m concerned, once you establish your base, you can reach out anywhere.  It’ll be you ringing through, wherever you decide to go musically.”

SHIP TO SHORE

Ship to Shore kicks off with the jaunty Freeze – coincidentally, the first of the new songs to be composed.  Well – I say ‘jaunty,’ but, as with anything that involves Richard Thompson, it’s not quite that simple.  The song’s lyrics tell the story of “… a man so paralyzed by his life, he can’t even bring himself to end it” but those lyrics are wrapped in a lively, almost bouncy tune, peppered with twirly guitar fills.  And that contrast between lyrical darkness and musical optimism is a theme that pervades ship to Shore from start to finish, as we shall see.

If anything, the juxtaposition between lyrical disturbance and musical contentment is even starker for the magnificent The Fear Never Leaves You.  It’s all intentional, of course, as Richard explains: “I like the idea of having a seductive surface where the listener gets sucked in by a fairly pleasant melody but, then [finds] hidden sharks in the water…” 

There is no doubt – The Fear Never Leaves You is a ‘pleasant melody,’ reminiscent of You Don’t Say, from RT’s 1982 Across a Crowded Room Album.  The lyrics, though, concern the mental state of a soldier who, having returned from battle, struggles – and fails – to find respite from the gory images of the scenes he’s witnessed that still occupy his mind and, with lines like: “If you should dream the dreams I dream, you’d never sleep again” and “Ten years, twenty or more/ The same monster comes through the door/ If I could unsee the things I’ve seen/ Comrades all to smithereens” they pull absolutely no punches.  And, when you add a delicious Hank Marvin-influenced guitar solo to that lot, you’ve got one hell of a song on your hands.

TRAD ARR

Traditional influences are clearly detectable in the soaring, atmospheric Singapore Sadie, but the subject matter, lyrics, scene-setting and guitar solos could only be Richard Thompson’s. David Mansfield adds a sweet coat of icing to the cake with his evocative violin licks.  Meanwhile RT’s well-documented admiration for the early work of Holland-Dozier-Holland comes across loudly and clearly in the quasi-disco rhythms of Trust.  As expected, though, the H-D-H sentiments don’t spill over into the song’s lyrics, which relate a tale of frustrated love in which neither of the protagonists get to enjoy a ‘happy-ever-after’ ending.

And we stick with the subject of frustrated love for the self-pitying The Day That I Give In and, once again, the bitterness of lyrics like: “But you don’t want me – you think I’m something tainted, like I’m some kind of mortal sin” is sweetened by a tune that is soft, folky and strangely soothing, awash with acoustic guitar tones and Zara’s beautiful harmonies.  Described as “ ‘An old man’s song’ that takes musical cues from 1600s-era European music,” The Old Pack Mule uses lyrics like: “Who wants his hooves?  We’ll melt them down for glue.  We’ll suck the marrow from his bones and skin the bugger, too” to showcase Richard’s proclivity for black humour.  Sharp and choppy, with a pair of stunning guitar solos and a hurdy-gurdy drone that persists throughout the song, it’s a slice of medieval rock and roll at its best.

Destined to become a live show favourite, the straight-ahead rocker Turnstile Casanova is exactly the kind of song you’d expect on a Richard Thompson album.  The Cajun feel and Michael’s driving drumbeat provide the perfect foundation for the bagpipe-like skirls that Richard coaxes from his guitar. 

GUITAR GENIUS

There’s always another sad tale of parting lurking around the corner on Ship to Shore. Lost in the Crowd takes us right back into that familiar territory.  Another spine-tingling trademark guitar solo and more divine harmonies from Zara – it’s Ship to Shore ‘business as usual,’ before everything falls squarely into place for the crisp, snappy, Maybe.  Once again, the subject matter is unrequited love. This time, there is no attempt to hide the humour. Lyrics like: “She can be flirty, she can shirty, her hands are clean but her mouth is dirty” readily testify to this.  And, if it’s guitar pyrotechnics that attract you to Richard Thompson’s music, then here’s where you’ll find them. Richard reaches for the stars and achieves sounds that are well beyond the capability of any mere mortal.  It’s another nailed-on live-show crowd pleaser.

Richard describes the left-field Life’s a Bloody Show as: “An ode to ‘snake-oil salesmen and hucksters’ that floats on a glammy, cabaret-like melody that’s almost a parody of a Nöel Coward song or something from Berlin in the 1920s” and that just about covers it.  It’s quite a wistful tune, but there’s plenty of RT ‘ooomph’ behind it.  Richard’s guitar fills are wonderfully fluid and the cabaret really takes hold during the song’s high-kicking final verse.

TA-RA FOR NOW!

Of all the songs on Ship to Shore, What’s Left to Lose is perhaps the number that captures, most completely, the essence of a Richard Thompson song.  It could have been written and recorded at any stage of Richard’s extensive career, so typical it is of his style – and all the aforementioned ingredients are present, correct and accounted for.

Richard wraps up Ship To Shore with We Roll; a number that I’d describe as a “ta-ra for now” song.  “It does have a slightly valedictory feel to it,” says Richard.  “I’m not intending to hang up my plectrum anytime soon.”  Indeed, we’re already hearing whispers that the great man already has another album written, in the pipeline and ‘ready to take into the studio.’  Watch this space…  Richard’s lyrics for We Roll are almost joyful and David chips in with some wonderfully sleazy violin parts on a tune that reminds me of a theme to a Western movie.  It is a strong bet to be the final encore on Thompson’s forthcoming tour.

And, speaking of that tour, the details of can be found here. 

Read more of our archive material on Richard Thompson here.

Listen to Freeze – the opening track to Ship to Shore – below.

Richard Thompson: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / Bandcamp

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