Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Richard Thompson, Richardthompson-music.com 2021.
Serpent’s Tears has Richard Thompson, the masterful British folk/rock musician and musicologist, once again proving that he has few equals as an acoustic guitarist and songwriter.
The six-track extended EP continues Richard’s creative response to lockdown that so far has yielded the successful Bloody Noses EP, a Live From London album and now Serpent’s Tears.
Richard is once again joined by Zara Phillips who provides harmony vocals with Richard playing all instruments.
His musical prowess never ceases to amaze.
While acoustic guitar dominates the EP Richard does bring out the electric guitar for the track When The Saints Rise Out Of Their Graves (I’m always partial to his wonderful tone and feel when he goes electric).
All the tracks are outstanding but if you are compiling your ‘surviving the pandemic’ tape then I recon you’d have to include When I Was Drunk.
As many studies have noted, the pandemic has been a boom time for alcohol distribution businesses.
If you are a Richard Thompson fan, then you might also be interested in purchasing his autobiography Beeswing (Losing My Way and Finding My Voice) which covers the years 1967-1975.
I should imagine that both the book and the EP are available through his website.
Richard is one of the best, but little known, singer/songwriter’s that is still around from the ‘60s and still writing and recording songs that are as relevant today as his songs were in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
While he has had faltering commercial success for his own albums (something that I can find no logical reason for) he has provided hit songs for a surprising number of A-listed artists including REM, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris and many, many more.
If you don’t know anything about Richard Thompson, then check out I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight (1975) and Shoot Out The Lights (1982).
These two albums regularly appear on list of the greatest unknown albums of the ‘70s and ‘80s and both made the full lists as well.
