Richard Thompson - Sweet Warrior
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Richard ThompsonEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-05-29
Music Label: Shout Factory
Soundtracks:
- Needle And Thread
- I'll Never Give It Up
- Take Care The Road You Choose
- Mr. Stupid
- Dad's Gonna Kill Me
- Poppy-Red
- Bad Monkey
- Francesca
- Too Late To Come Fishing
- Sneaky Boy
- She Sang Angels To Rest
- Johnny's Far Away
- Guns Are The Tongues
- Sunset Song
Free Music Notes for Sweet Warrior
Free Music Review: Superb.
Hit: 5 Stars
He is one of the greatest songwrters and guitarists. He is a legend.
He adds that, although, the album wasn't assembled thematically, on reflection it seems to keep returning to the subject of "combat, in love as well as in war." The songs and guitars on "Sweet Warrior" are equally electrifying - including the acoustic ones - but it is a particular treat in the electric guitar department. "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" may prove the first great, enduring song about the current war in Iraq.
Richard says that his new CD is "a kind of a war record, not just political war but also domestic war or relationship war. There's a sweetness to it as well".
Unlike last year's Front Parlour Ballads, this is for the most part an electric Thompson offering, the first such since 2003's The Old Kit Bag, and first impression is very much that the man hasn't lost his touch one iota, the quality of songwriting is uniformly high throughout, consistent to a fault you could say, and the whole affair is unmistakably "RT".
That doesn't mean it's predictable, just predictably brilliant. But then, we'll feel like... biased.Richard's signature electric guitar work had always been rated very highly indeed, and he's unique among exponents of that instrument in still being able to reduce the listeners to tears (of whatever kind) with the sheer expressiveness of his playing.
On "Sweet Warrior", Richard get the chance to open up and stretch out on 68 minutes' worth of music containing 14 new songs that run a typically varied Thompson gamut from reflective doom-and-gloom and tenderly yearning romantic creations to vitriolic bile and provocative, scathing political comment.
Almost half of these new songs are likely to be considered Thompson classics. For most of the time Richard's backed by his current core touring band (Michael Hays on rhythm guitar, Taras Prodaniuk on electric bass, Michael Jerome on drums and Judith Owen on harmony vocals), but for just over half the tracks Danny Thompson takes over on acoustic bass, while two feature Joe Sublett on tenor sax and a further three Nickel Creek's Sara Watkins on fiddle, and one ("She Sang Angels To Rest") even has a string-trio arrangement.
So as you'll gather it's not a bland unadventurous stock-electric-combo sound, and Richard himself injects imaginative colours into the mix with occasional bursts of mandolin, whistle, accordion, autoharp, harmonium, hurdy-gurdy and organ.
Individual highlights include the almost unbearable melancholy of the beautifully-paced "Take Care The Road You Choose" and the mournful closer "Sunset Song", the almost cinematic narrative sweep of "Guns Are The Tongues", the powerful soldier's-eye-view of "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" (the inspiration for the album's title?), the less-is-more neo-classical understatement of "She Sang Angels To Rest", and the deceptively cheeky nod to traditional song within the pithy commentary of "Johnny's Far Away".
Elsewhere, "Bad Monkey" rings the changes on its opening Tear-Stained riff and develops into a satisfying retro-rocker in the best Thompo twist-the-knife tradition (and I'll bet it comes with a killer guitar solo live!), whereas "Francesca" is a moody ska-inflected number with deep twang underpinning the enigmatic questioning of the lyric and "Sneaky Boy" is an edgy Costello-style putdown; only the humdrum riffing of "Mr Stupid" palls on repeated hearing perhaps.
Vocally, Richard i's on splendid form throughout this set.
"Sweet Warrior" will shortly come to be regarded as one of the finest in the Thompson canon.
Sweet Warrior Poster
Literate rocker Richard Thompson's new album, Sweet Warrior, is a return to his classic electric sound, his first plugged-in album since 2003's The Old Kit Bag. Filled with 14 songs of stories of loss and betrayal, the album also contains one of Thompson's most overtly political songs to date, "Dad's Gonna Kill Me," told from the perspective of a nervous young soldier stationed in Baghdad (abbreviated as "Dad" in the song). Richard Thompson is a consummate singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His career stretches back to the late '60s, when he was a founding member of the British folk-rock Fairport Convention. In the late '70s, with his then-wife, Linda, he recorded Shoot Out the Lights, which regularly makes critics' lists of the best records of all time. In the '90s, he experienced another career renaissance with the album Rumor & Sigh and he remains an elder-statesman of alternative rock.Back in the '80s and '90s, Richard Thompson could be depended upon to release a well-crafted collection of Celtic-influenced folk-rock every few years. But when he left Capitol after 1999's Mock Tudor, Thompson headed off on side projects, all of typically high quality, but not the solo albums his established cult expected. Those fans can now rejoice, because on Sweet Warrior Thompson roars back with his first electric set of originals since 2003, and it's a winner. As the disc's title implies, he revisits the familiar territory of love as a battlefield in these 14 originals. The concept is emphasized by a liner photo of the singer/songwriter in army gear and camouflage flanked by two beautiful women planting kisses on either cheek. Supported by longtime backing cohorts, the guitarist adds to his six-string talents with occasional mandolin, autoharp, accordion, and even organ, all used as icing on a cake of tunes that further refine his established style. Perhaps the most startling song is the viciously anti-war "Dad's Going to Kill Me," about a soldier stationed in Baghdad (the "Dad" of the title), wondering if he will survive another day. "Guns are the Tongues" finds Thompson telling the tragic tale of a young man enticed by a woman's charms ending up as a suicide-bombing terrorist. Thompson's dramatic guitar solos are kept on low boil, occasionally bubbling up but never hogging the spotlight. They are, along with his distinctive vocals, actors in a play of characteristically classy tunes that will thrill Thompson's fans, who have been waiting for just such a set of literate and challenging music from a musician who never delivers less. --Hal Horowitz
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