New Richard Thompson Release

 

Ship to Shore (2024)

By Richard Thompson

New West Records

 

Richard Thompson has been among my favorite musicians since he was a young whelp in Fairport Convention. I tend to like his acoustic music a bit more because I can hear song lyrics more clearly and appreciate his guitar wizardry when it’s stripped of electronic tricks, but RT’s also a fine rock musician.

 

On the cover of his newest recording Ship to Shore Thompson looks like an old salt in his watch cap, intense gaze, and seagulls perched on his shoulders. But don’t expect sea shanties or ballads; this is a plugged-in album. The one link to the cover’s sailor persona is that many of the songs are about traveling, the loneliness it entails, and searching for close contact, even the temporary kind. Even the song titles bespeak this yearning: “Lost in the Crowd,” “What’s Left to Lose,” “Maybe.” The last of these has a catchy guitar riff, but can we really picture Richard Thompson in any kind of long-term relationship with a lady in her Jimmy Choo shoes and her Lily Grace sweater/A splash of Opium between her knees?

 

The closest Thompson gets to a sea song vibe is “Singapore Sadie,” a tale of a mysterious no-nonsense lady who looks out for herself and believes that romance is overrated. Thompson has long been considered the duke of darkness; “Sadie” is almost sunny by his standards. If you need confirmation of that, try “The Fear Never Leaves You” or “Life’s a Bloody Show.” His “Turnstile Casanova” is a (sort of) companion piece to “Sadie.” The most “sentimental” (-ish) song might be “Old Pack Mule.” It’s one of my favorite tracks on the album, but fate isn’t kind in this one either. Check out the hypnotic snake handler background music.

 

I suspect my fellow Thompson devotees will agree with me that this is both a solid recording, but one that settles in the middle of his oeuvre pack. I appreciated that Thompson confines electric guitar to instrumental breakouts and did his best to make Ship to Shore a lyrics-forward project. What the album seems to lack–and maybe my view will change as I listen more–is a couple of “holy smoke!” signature tracks. I don’t mean to imply the production is all of piece, but nothing shoots out the lights (as it were). That said, anything Richard Thompson does is better than most of what you hear elsewhere. Will I be at Northampton’s Academy of Music on October 11 when he brings the Ship to Shore to the stage? Do seagulls crap on parked cars?

 

Rob Weir