Mock Tudor
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Description
A literate songwriter and fearlessly talented guitarist, Richard Thompson is also a complete bust when it comes to romance. Or so Mock Tudor, which details love gone wrong from an early age to present, suggests over and over. Fortunately, Thompson makes his troubles worth our concern, thanks to his mix of wounded perseverance ("Dry My Tears and Move On") and all-out bile (the vindictive but ultimately self-destructive "Hope You Like the New Me"). --Keith Moerer
Description
Few musical charms compare with those of Richard Thompson's better albums. Mock Tudor easily ranks amongst them, thanks in part to inventive producers Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, who help strike a melodious balance between Thompson's genre-hopping instrumental subtleties and the gritty rave-ups that characterize his full-flail live shows. Together again with Fairport drummer Dave Mattacks and bassist Danny Thompson (and with help on guitar and vocals from son Teddy), Thomspon is set free. There's a delightful, modal minisolo on "Sibella"; "Uninhabited Man" finds the former student of Sufism holding down a Led Zep-ish Eastern groove; and every other song is a subtle, midtempo, sure-fire hit in an alternate universe. Lyrically, Thompson sticks to dark-side-of-the-street subject matter; the majority of the songs describe a relationship gone over the edge or about to (Elvis Costello is Thompson's only peer when it comes to charming, post-Dylan misanthropy in song). Women are goddesses ("Cooksferry Queen"), a bad match ("Sibella," "Two-Faced Love"), evil temptresses ("Bathsheba Smiles," "Hard on Me"), and about to dump the protagonist any second now ("Crawl Back Under My Stone")--and that's just the first six songs! In "Cooksferry Queen" when Thompson sings, "People speak my name in whispers--what higher praise can there be," the singer-songwriter might well be describing himself. --Mike McGonigal
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