Most helpful customer reviews
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Hmmm..., Mar 13 2008
It may seem ludicrous, if not downright blasphemous, to rate an RT release a paltry 3 stars. Yet, whenever RT releases something new, expectations run very high. How can they not, when it comes from this largely unknown yet virtually peerless guitarist, and sublime songwriter? Stretching back forty years, the man has written dozens of classics, rivaling Townshend, McCartney, Dylan and a handful of others in matching quality with prolificacy. With "Sweet Warrior" the usual atributes are there in abundance: stellar guitar work, soulful vocals, tight, often lovely arrangements, that, with a full band involved, seldom lack muscle. The lyrics, as well, are up to snuff. The wry, sardonic "Dad's Gonna Kill Me", the elegiac beauty of "Take Care The Road You Choose" or the evocative "She Sang Angels To Rest" - a new RT record is always jammed with rich images, biting wit and clever storytelling. But, the lyrics are not the problem. It's the sheer length of this release. Running at almost seventy minutes, what could have been a treasure trove, by the tenth song in, ends up feeling like work. With the absence of memorable melodies, an over reliance on groove, and a dry production style, attention begins to wander, and ears begin to tire. By the time the listeners gets to the sublime guitar workout that is "Guns Are The Tongues", one wishes the journey had been a wee bit faster. Some judicious pruning could have turned this record into a stellar piece of work - not close to his late period masterpiece, "Mock Tudor" - but nearer to the superb, "Old Kit Bag". So, 3 stars within the context of the Thompson canon - most likely 5 stars compared to virtually everything else.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Folk-rock maestro's idiosyncratic path takes him to Baghdad and beyond., May 29 2007
Sweet Warrior" is his 16th solo album, and he sounds more like a loner - intense, precise, impervious to fashion - than ever.
Save "Francesca", a stiff nod to reggae, Thompson hasn't radically altered his style. These remain, ostensibly, rock songs underpinned by the cadences of folk, delivered by a stern and occasionally rather wry man who plays guitar with a fearsome penetrative clarity.
If Neil Young is rock's quintessential sloucher, then Thompson is his polar opposite, the uptight maestro, nerves as taut and tuned as his guitar strings.
"Bad Monkey" may be jaunty, a Caledonian swing tune inhabited by the spirit of Lord Rockingham's XI. But every time the honking saxes appear to gain the upper hand, Thompson hoves back into view, spitting out solos that have the bent vigour of Roger McGuinn on "Eight Miles High".
2005's lovely solo acoustic set Front Parlour Ballads saw him pondering British identity from his exile in LA.
But this one is a fiercer and less suburban record, predicated on conflict, both between countries and lovers.
"Dad's Gonna Kill Me" is a bitter stand-out, written from the perspective of a GI stationed in Iraq.
"Out in the desert there's a soldier lying dead/ Vultures pecking the eyes out of his head", he hisses, with a stentorian ardour that's oddly similar to Nick Cave.
Thompson can still be tender, though, and the way "Take Care The Road You Choose" gracefully unravels, with the guitar teasing emotional verities out of a buttoned-up stoic, bears comparison with his best songs from the Richard & Linda era.
When Thompson sings about pursuing a vision and "not looking for ghosts behind me", it works as a metaphor for his own brilliant career, too.
The Liege & Lief-era Fairports will reunite briefly this month, but Thompson - and only Thompson - doesn't need to relive any past glories.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb, predictably brilliant., May 29 2007
He is one of the greatest songwriters 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 is on splendid form throughout this set.
"Sweet Warrior" will shortly come to be regarded as one of the finest in the Thompson canon.
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~ Richard Thompson
~ Brian Eno & David Byrne
~ Richard Thompson
~ Linda Thompson
~ Lyle Lovett
