In a 2024 interview with KLOF Mag, around the release of his previous Ship To Shore album, Richard Thompson revealed he’d already written the next record, and it was ready to go. It would appear that the enforced layoff of the pandemic years had cleared enough space in the diary for composition to take priority, and once that creative tap had been turned on, the ideas kept flowing out. That album from two years ago was strong, playing to all of Thompson’s strengths, with some predictably outstanding moments that added to the ever-expanding songwriter’s catalogue. But the first clear impression of this follow-up is that, potentially because the writing evolved in one elongated block, Hippies, Thugs And Heroes pushes the envelope much further in what can be realised in studio craft and arrangements. Taking advantage of the full band situation and the extra textures that set up encourages, there are some startling musical diversions and excursions explored here; it could almost be said that the artist who once had a compilation titled Doom And Gloom From The Tomb is indulging in a bit of audio fun and production free hand. Whatever the motivation, it makes for an album that stands tall among Richard’s recent releases and could easily be regarded as the recorded high point of this period of his career.
The man himself has alluded to the unexpected fruits that fall when he loosens the shackles of structured writing and submits to the surprises and mysteries subconscious thought can offer. He explains, “I’ll write something and a day later, or even a year later, I’ll look back at it and think, what is this thing? Where did it come from? There isn’t a song on this album that I am not surprised by or that I fully understand, and I’ll take that as a good thing.” He did, nevertheless, take extra time developing arrangements for the band at the demo stage, which enabled the recording process to be attacked with Thompson’s preferred impetus of capturing early take energy (maybe still aware of the ‘Thompson Curve’ referred to in his autobiography, a notion held by certain studio producers that after the first three takes, Richard does not return to a similar intensity until around take twelve). That band has been well attuned to the soul of this man’s music for some time now, comprising Taras Prodaniuk on bass, Michael Jerome on drums, David Mansfield on fiddle and guitar, with Richard’s wife Zara Phillips on backing vocals, which is a fine blend, his singing voice benefitting throughout the decades from many a counterbalancing female tone.
And speaking of balance, the songs here all walk a line, branching out to fresh pastures for Thompson while packing the lyrics and sound with familiar reference points. Sorcerer’s Apprentice loosely connects in subject matter to The Beatles’ ‘Sexy Sadie,’ while the combined assault of three competing electric twelve-string guitars makes this song of walking away from a self-appointed spiritual saviour feel like a timeless flight, gloriously reminiscent of The Byrds. The ‘Unsung Hero’ of the song’s title is an honest working-class grafter, sung in the vernacular of a Victorian cheeky chappy Thompson once inhabited; you sometimes sense the London alive in Richard’s head is still framed by smog and gas lamps. That same music hall cockney voice leads the irresistibly bouncing Everybody’s Stealing, an old-fashioned sing-along romp that even the writer recognises belongs in an ‘Oliver’ style musical, setting a stage for this jaunt with bar-room bonhomie and the evocative magic of a brass band. And if you think that effective brush stroke recalls the biggest hit from the Richard & Linda Thompson days, just listen to the dramatic opening notes of The Big Smoke and try not to think of Fairport Convention’s ‘Reynardine.’
She Burns It All is where things really take a turn; I can think of nothing else in the Thompson archive that feels quite like this raga-like, spinning fever-dream piece of psych-folk. All the same, he absolutely nails the dizzy vibe; pieces like this are what make this LP stand out from his other releases. Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking shows his ability to write colourful, fleshed-out character portraits burns as bright as ever. Here we find a similar collection of chancers as those referenced in the album’s title, each inspired in part by Scots Richard knew who came down to London for work, all coming up against the same challenges, disillusionments, and disappointments. Here, in particular, the lead guitar work gives Richard the chance to assault some crunching riffs, something he never overplays, even though whenever one is pulled out of the bag, like on 1982’s ‘Shoot Out The Lights,’ the reception is generally all-round approval. He brings a boundary-busting, cricket-bat thwack to his playing in these moments, though, as the improvised solo passages also reveal, finesse, wonder, and surprise remain indelibly to the fore. There is room for some acoustic too; Paupers Grave uses it as the slow rhythmic backbone, while the electricity of the soloing heightens the grim destitution in the tale of a man found dead by the road, doing the decent thing with his final farewell even though “there’ll be nobody there.” The Soul In Me has a baroque mournfulness in its acoustic setting, while Siren reminds us, at the close, of his masterful touch in the realm of the aching acoustic love song. In the end, you come away from this Richard Thompson album stimulated by the ongoing development of the worldview, characters, and human scenarios that have fed his work for decades. And there is also a thrill in the dazzle of the unexpected because, six decades in, this cornerstone of British folk-rock still has the capacity to evolve, inform, and press hard on our emotional impulses.
Hippies, Thugs and Heroes (October 16th, 2026) New West Records