RICHARD THOMPSON : MOCK TUDOR

 

  1. Cooksferry Queen
  2. Sibella
  3. Bathsheba Smiles
  4. Two-Faced Love
  5. Hard on Me
  6. Crawl Back (Under My Stone)
  7. Uninhabited Man
  8. Dry My Tears and Move On
  9. Walking the Long Miles Home
  10. Sights and Sounds of London Town
  11. That's All, Amen, Close the Door
  12. Hope You Like the New Me

Label : Capitol Records

Release Year : 1999

Length : 55:04

Review (AllMusic) : Just how lost Richard Thompson was under Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake's direction during the '90s is made clear by Mock Tudor, the brilliant sequel to the botched You? Me? Us? Producers/engineers Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf keep the production clean and direct, allowing the songs to breathe and letting Thompson play guitar. That decision alone would have made Mock Tudor a satisfying listen, but what elevates it into the first rank of his albums is, naturally, the songs themselves. Thompson structured the album as a portrait of suburbia, tackling a different subject with each song. It's not all about desperation, although there certainly is a lot of that there. Instead, Thompson is at the top of his form, offering subtle shadings in his lyrics and remarkably catchy, memorable melodies throughout the album. As a matter of fact, it's a bit of a tour de force, opening with the rollicking "Cooksferry Queen" and closing with its polar opposite, the hushed, intimate black comedy of "Hope You Like the New Me." Between those two songs, Thompson covers all sorts of emotional textures, resulting in his most affecting effort in years. Since even on his uneven '90s efforts he demonstrated that he still was in full grasp of his talents, it can't be said that Mock Tudor is a comeback, but it's certainly the best album he's made in over a decade.

Review (Wikipedia) : Mock Tudor is an album by Richard Thompson released in 1999. For this, his fifth album for Capitol Records, Thompson teamed up with producers Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, and Mock Tudor had a more straightforward production than his preceding albums on Capitol which had been produced by Mitchell Froom. In this album Thompson draws predominantly on the musical styles of Sixties England-the time and place of his youth. The lyrics have a nostalgic tinge and are rich with allusion to fairy tales and children's books as well as to Shakespeare and T. S. Eliot. Thematically, Mock Tudor is split into three sections: Metroland-comprising the first five songs, "Cooksferry Queen" to "Hard on Me", Heroes In The Suburbs-covering "Crawl Back (Under My Stone)" through "Walking the Long Miles Home", and concluding with Street Cries And Stage Whispers-encompassing the last three songs (on the original release). Widely regarded by critics and Thompson fans as one of his best works, Mock Tudor was yet another richly acclaimed album that was largely ignored by the public. This was the last album that Thompson recorded for Capitol and his last to date for a major record label. Subsequent Thompson studio albums would be self-financed and distributed by smaller independent labels.