Linda Thompson Versatile Heart

Bookended by two instrumental tracks both bearing the optimistic title Stay Bright, Versatile Heart, the follow-up to Linda Thompson's 2002 comeback Fashionably Late, is a forward looking, refreshing album that will inspire further reappraisal of Thompson's 40 year career.

The thirteen tracks on Versatile Heart are largely penned by Thompson in collaboration with children Teddy and Kamila. Beauty, contributed by Rufus Wainwright and featuring Anthony Heggarty on vocals, is predictably the most lavish number, which muses on the fall of celebrities such as Oscar Wilde and Michael Jackson (only Wainwright!), although despite its pedigree, even this remains understated. Linda's steely yet vulnerable voice an great foil to Anthony's fluting baritone.

One of Thompson's skills is to remain quietly and thoughtfully restrained. Even on numbers as great as the gutsy, horn-led, folk lovesong Versatile Heart and the redneck country slowdance of Do Your Best for Rock'n Roll, where other artists would be tempted to unleash all their vocal talents and swamp the tracks in unnecessary production, Thompson keeps such excesses at bay.

The minimalist approach is used to heartrending affect on the Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan protest song Day after Tomorrow, which sounds, in Thompson's hands as though it has been lovingly excavated from the English folk archives. And the tearjerker Go Home doesn't so much tug on the heart strings as pull them right out and tie them in a not before your eyes.

It's a surprise that, on occasion, Thompson, who is so indelibly associated with English folk, slips into an American accent. But on the unashamedly country Give Me A Sad Song, this vocal leap across the pond seems appropriate. How else do you deliver lines like "So I'll swim for the shore even though I'll never make it, I'll sing once more about my heart and what you did to break it"?

Whisky, Bob Copper and Me, a duet with Eliza Carthy unites two of the most iconic voices of English folk in a ballad eulogising a man whose work did much to keep many songs in the folk songbook. The track is appropriately fun and poignant at once.

Although highly respected, Thompson's work has not always received the highest of praise, and the 17 year hiatus before Fashionably Late threatened to tarnish her reputation. Versatile Heart is a witty, accomplished, affecting, and warm album of beautifully crafted songs that should inspire new interest in this legend of British folk.