Mock Tudor
With a new production team on board in Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, *Mock Tudor* is a welcomed new approach for Richard Thompson, circa 1999. Here, the producers seem most concerned with staying out of the way once the immediacy is captured. Thompson lets loose with the very first cut, “Cooksferry Queen,” and continues rolling out the electric carpet with the pounding groove of “Sibella,” featuring one of his strongest vocals. Thompson conceived the album as a multi-part tale of suburbia and the songs have the feel of a camera taking shots from different angles. Per usual, Thompson’s at his most rewarding on the straight-forward rockers and the tear-jerking ballads that always find their way to tape (like the even tougher than usual “Hope You Like the New Me”).