Almost a sequel to 2018's
13 Rivers
,
Ship to Shore
reunites
Richard Thompson
's core band for another confident, self-produced set that plays like an amalgam of his career's disparate styles. Its lean and lively 12 songs were recorded in a single week-long stand at Woodstock, New York's Applehead Recording by engineer
Chris Bittner
. This follows a trend in
Thompson
's latter-day output, a renewed emphasis on feel and collaborative interplay over studio layering. It also provides an efficient delivery system for his two biggest assets: great songwriting and sharp, inventive guitar playing. To that end,
is one of the tightest collections he's made in the past quarter-century, exhibiting a wide tonal palette and a vitality belying his 75 years. Its title and maritime imagery are a little misleading; fans expecting bawdy shanties or a nautical epic in the vein of
Fairport Convention
's groundbreaking "A Sailor's Life" will instead find a particularly saucy set of bruised love songs, droll character studies, and ruminations on time's cruel passage. The signature folk-rock style he helped pioneer remains a baseline of his sound, especially on the loping "Freeze" and "The Old Pack Mule," the latter of which segues into a sprightly electric shuffle that could have come from
Morris On
or another early-'70s
Fairport
family gem. The punchy "Turnstile Casanova" has the energy of a '90s-era
cut and slots right in among his countless wry odes to love gone wrong. Of course there is plenty of guitar work to be dazzled by, particularly the revved-up solos on "Maybe" and the wild improvisations at the end of "What's Left to Lose." It's stunning how a player so crafty and experienced can still throw himself into the deep and shred with such vigor. That he also remains a top-notch songsmith and vocalist makes him one of the rare triple-threats who consistently delivers. ~ Timothy Monger