Richard Thompson - Still

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Classic Richard Thompson

This is a very fine Richard Thompson album.  The man's a genius who has been writing great songs and playing superb music for decades now and this is a great addition to his already stellar canon.

Thompson's music is it's usual excellent self: good melodies, harmonically interesting and lyrically full of that carefree joi de vivre that always characterises Thompson's songs.  :o)  Seriously, a glance at the titles will give you a pretty strong clue that he's not deviating much from the sadness and anger which runs through so much of his work:  Broken Doll; No Peace, No End; Where's Your Heart…you get the idea.  And yet it never becomes depressing or over-bitter.  The quality of the songwriting keeps it well above that level, and it's a fine album.

The performances and production are top-class, I think.  Thompson is one of the great guitarists of our age and he's on fine form here – some fine guitar work while being quite understated and often quite far back in the mix.  This works very well indeed, I think, and the band are all excellent.

I loved Electric but I wasn't quite so taken with Acoustic Classics, although I can't quite put my finger on why.  This is Thompson back to the peak of his form, I think: a classic Thompson album of fine songs, exceptionally well performed.  It's always hard to tell for a while whether an album will turn out to be truly great as opposed to very good, but I think this may well be up there with Richard Thompson's very best – which is really saying something.  Warmly recommended.