When I reviewed Richard Thompson's last album, the live document Dream Attic, I pointed out how ridiculous it was that a man the same age as my mother was putting out better rock music than 95% of young bands. I'll give them a pass on technical ability, and obviously lacking Thompson's nearly 50 years' experience is a handicap, but there's no excuse for them to be outdone in the category of raw enthusiasm. Young bands, you had three years to get your shit together, but Richard Thompson has owned your ass again!
Thompson assembled what he calls a "less powerful power trio" - less powerful than Cream or the Jimi Hendrix Experience - but then who isn't? The similarities begin and end with the fact that the Electric trio is led by a guitar virtuoso whose rhythm section can not only keep up, but easily so. In the EPK he described the music therein as "funk folk", and while that might not be entirely apt, Michael Jerome's drums make many of the songs inspire dancing, which Thompson will be the first to tell you people didn't always consider a separate activity from listening to music. Like other drummers such as Janet Weiss and Dave Grohl who are accustomed to playing in trios, Jerome knows how to sound "big".
While the standout track here is "Stuck on the Treadmill" - strange how Thompson's songs with the most epic solos tend to be my favourites - the real revelation is how inspired some of the quieter numbers are. Some slowly build ("My Enemy"), while others such as "The Snow Goose", nothing but acoustic guitar and vocals, stay tense and still for their duration. That one sounds like something Thompson could have written in the 70s with Linda's vocals in mind. Instead he takes the lead while Allison Krauss provides backing vocals.
Thompson isn't constantly reinventing himself at this point in his career, and individual thresholds for variations on what he's been doing for decades now will vary, as will where Electric fits in with his recent albums. For my money it's no Dream Attic, but it would still be a hell of a year in which it wasn't a highlight.
Related:
Richard Thompson - Dream Attic
My 200 Favourite Albums of All Time
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