Separate Ways
Biological determinists who find a poster boy in this 30-year-old singer/songwriter will miss just what's exceptional about the talent emerging on his second album. Certainly if your father were Richard Thompson, you'd have him play guitar on your record too. The son, however, has made an album as crafty in pop, lush in roots, and unguarded in emotion as any of his peers--and his sound, while clearly indebted to the acoustic foundations of British folk-rock, is his own fusion of L.A. singer/songwriter sweetness and Wallflowers-esque AOR rock. He's also finding his own way into songwriting, turning quotidian phrases into deadpan wit--"Being happy is easy if you're dumb," he sings on "That's Enough Out of You"--or letting everyday speech reveal a troubled honesty. "I can change my mind but not my blood," he admits on the title track, as strings and scuffling snare build tension. His arrangements leave ample space for his voice, a bell-bright instrument with a deceptive range, to open up his melodies. By layering harmonies from longtime pals Rufus and Martha Wainwright, as well as his mother, Linda Thompson, Teddy gives those melodies the shine, even ambition, of pop outreach--even if, as he sings on the opening track, he wants to "shine so bright it hurts."--Roy Kasten