This is not the greatest Richard and Linda Thompson album – not by a long shot. Nevertheless, for the past three days I have been listening to it nonstop.
I wear headphones frequently at work — mostly to block out office noise as I write or, more commonly, dick around with long strings of mls of the ht or x variety.
For three days straight I’ve played nothing but this album. This slow, somewhat dark album with kinda morose non-harmonic voices. Which only has one kickass guitar solo on it. The rest is just slow, repetitive and, I dunno, for some reason, awesome.
Thompson was under the thumb of a maniacal Muslim mullah who forbade him to rock out on the guitar. (No I didn’t make that up — RT is still a Muslim, but a reform Muslim.) As such, he only kinda takes a mellow, Mark Knopfler-like solo on the 8+ minute “Night Comes In.” Because his guitar work is so spare on the rest of the album, it makes this piece sound like a shredder masterpiece. (Which it certainly isn’t, but in the desert a little drop of rain can feel like a monsoon.)
Anyway, I’d like to listen to this album under different circumstances. Maybe I’m not paying enough attention? Maybe it is the greatest background album of all time???
