Review: Richard Thompson – Ship to Shore

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I think it was around twenty years ago, probably at the time of The Old Kit Bag, that I was writing about Richard Thompson and observing the reliable high standard of songwriting you can expect to hear whenever he releases an album. I went on to note that, among those dozen or so new pieces, there will be at the very least two songs that would stand to be long-term Thompson classics, be it by his own standards or that of all singer-songwriters in general. Well, it was true then and it remains so to this day. Here on Ship to Shore, the man’s first new long player in six years, buried away as the penultimate track, is a song called What’s Left To Lose which absolutely shares a space with the many outstanding and enduring numbers Richard has ever delivered. Atypically Thompson, it is a song with pain and despair at its core, the singer asking in the chorus, “what’s left to lose, everything I had is gone?” It is also constructed with the craftsman-like hand of a master, everything from the shape of the melody, the ache in the minor tones and the guttural punch in the chord patterns as they wrap around those tortured words make this play like a song that was waiting for the right songwriter to snatch it from the song tree. It had to be Richard, didn’t it? When it comes to unfiltered doom and gloom served in a musical dressing that, against the odds, almost sends the listener heading back for more, nobody does it better.

That said, he is no one trick pony and never will be. As with the majority of his 21^st century albums of new material, it is the electric Richard Thompson stepping forward on Ship to Shore, accompanied by the core of his red-hot live band, namely bassist Taras Prodaniuk and drummer Michael Jerome. Recorded live in the room for the most part, the sound is filled out with extra guitar from Bobby Eichorn, fiddle by David Mansfield and vocal harmonies from Richard’s partner Zara Phillips. It is Zara who makes her presence felt the most among the supporting cast, for she is likely the subject matter of one of the record’s most insistently upbeat and bouncy tunes, Maybe. You see, for all his attraction to the darker subject matter, Richard has always had a finesse when it comes to launching a foot-tapping rocker, he can carve it up with the best of them and his attraction to rhythm and beat never sound forced. Indeed, tracks like this one or Turnstile Cassanova and the jaunty (not so much in subject matter, this one sings of a man so paralyzed by life he cannot even bring himself to end it) album opener Freeze give the record a pace that cause it to almost fly past too quickly.

Still, when he hits hard, there is no holding back; The Fear Never Leaves You is an early example of Thompson heading deep into the dark matter without an exit strategy. Focusing on PTSD suffered by soldiers after the Falklands War, it offers very little in the way of crumbs of comfort, preferring to microscope the harsh, unending reality of a trauma that cannot be remedied in a musical setting that scolds and soothes in equal measure. On other occasions, even Richard can find no other remedy than to stare a dire situation straight in the face and try laughing at it, a tactic he is employing on Life’s A Bloody Show which surely has Donald Trump buried among the subtexts on display. Singapore Sadie sails into view and is that Zara Phillips finding herself the muse to Richard’s detailed portrait once more?

Like all the best songwriters, he leaves enough space in the songs for the listener to make their own personal attachments, although the album closer, We Roll, does bring some cause for concern. With lines like “we thank you for all your love down the years, we hope we brought some joy and some tears”, is this Richard bidding us a more permanent farewell? Luckily, the man himself has spoken out ahead of the release to dampen down that suggestion, “I’m not intending to hang up my plectrum anytime soon”, he says, “if I don’t write, if I don’t perform, I get frustrated and I feel like I’m not being the human being I should be”. That is a good shout, for Ship To Shore is not the sound of an artist in any sort of decline, quite the opposite; the Richard Thompson of 2024 is a singer-songwriter enjoying the most vital of late golden periods, producing work to stand favourably alongside any from his previous fifty years.

Richard Thompson’s Ship To Shore is out on 25th May via New West Records.  http://newwst.com/shiptoshore