Nigh on 40 years, Richard Thompson is as prolific as he’s always been—and as obscure. Thompson is more or less a contemporary of Bob Dylan’s folk revival, zigging Celtic where bob zagged Americana. It makes sense: Both Thompson and Dylan were merely investigating their respective musical heritages. The difference today is that while Dylan is by and large seen as the best singer-songwriter in history, Thompson is known merely as a musician’s musician, at least outside of his native U.K. (Even when he heard Dylan had covered his crowning achievement in 2012.)
But as Thompson’s latest shows, he’s enjoyed more consistency in his later years than his American counterpart. Produced by Jeff Tweedy, whose contributions are subtle if not totally imperceptible here, “Still” has Thompson clinging fast to timeless mode of songwriting, infusing blues and folk into numbers about a host of different women: beguiling ones, puritanical ones, and those who break just like little girls. (Also: straight up, a song about pirate. But we’ll circle back to that.)
While most of the album has Thompson taking up the electric axe, he begins with two acoustic numbers. “Beatnik Walking” is a jaunty traveling song strung from one of Thompson’s (still) endless bag of riffs on the album. But “She Never Could Resist A Winding Road” is the real takeaway. Itap as essential as any of Thompson’s , deftly teasing out the story of a wayward love with the subtle celtic trappings. More than just vintage Thompson, itap vintage folk, a neat execution of his studious classicism.
From here, “Still” deals largely in electric blues, which rarely lays the listener as flat as his early wood and steel offerings. Instead of emotional resonance, the appreciation stems from gawking at Thompson’s six-string prowess, which he sports in fits throughout the album. In odd cases, it is a song’s sole redemption (the solo on “Patty Don’t You Put Me Down” for one). On “Guitar Heroes,” Thompson throws his riff notes in the air, blocking off time to pay tribute to four of his six-string idols: Les Paul, Django Reinhardt, Chuck Berry and British instrumental band The Shadows. Itap a clever way to pay homage without merely covering, and even if the song itself is little more than framework for the riff exercise, itap an entertaining montage.
Chuck Berry tributes aside, there are sogns here that read as if they were plucked straight out of the nineteenth century. (The delicate “Josephine” details the tryst of a castle-bound lass.) “Long John Silver” is a song about a wily pirate, no more no less. Whether that sounds amazing or embarrassing will all depend, but for my money, it’s best to not overthink it. As the album title suggests, “Still” contains nil forward movement for Thompson. But like Dylan, at this point in his career, the thrill is in hearing a master indulge in his mastery, even if he isn’t re-discovering it. It’s inconsistent, but Thompson still gets that.
