Review: Teddy Thompson Finds Solace in Old Styles on 'Heartbreaker Please'
Teddy Thompson is a musical nomad. In addition to his solo work, which has touched everything from the British folk rock that is his family legacy (Thompson is the son of British folk rock trailblazers Richard and Linda Thompson) to rockabilly and country, Thompson has spent the nine years since his last solo outing, 2011's Bella, serving as a producer and collaborator. Those works have brought him into the world of countrypolitan duets via his 2016 album with Kelly Jones, to the Appalachian folk of the Blue Ridge mountains via his production work for Dori Freeman and her grandfather Willard Gayheart and to pure Americana via his work on Allison Moorer and Shelby Lynne's Not Dark Yet. But now Thompson is ready to step out from behind the booth and back into the spotlight with Heartbreaker Please, available May 29 from Thirty Tigers (after being delayed nearly a month by the COVID-19 crisis).
As you might guess from the title, Heartbreaker Please isn't full of love songs, at least not happy ones. Instead, the album is Thompson's way of processing the breakdown of his own romantic relationship. It is wistful in places, wryly humorous in others, and downright soul crushing in others. One such moment of intense pain is on album standout track “No Idea.” Thompson, in a voice that almost cracks with emotion, croons “The therapy is helping, but I still feel mostly sad” before following it up with “I'm a house with no foundation... I'm a metaphor that's reaching.”
On the other side is the darkly humorous “At a Light”, in which Thompson shows off his best Roy Orbison warble, complete with snap-track background. Insisting throughout the song that his ex-lover will hear a song, see a sign, or remember a moment and “you're gonna miss me.” It's the kind of “we'll see who wins out” bravado that comes about at the end of every relationship; a kind of desperate take on Tom Petty's “you got lucky, babe.” But, as Thompson says in his own commentary for the song, “Unfortunately, it turns out she didn't and is living happily with her new fella in New Jersey.”
On “Why Wait”, with its upbeat horn intro and its poppy tempo, Thompson contemplates pre-emptively ending a relationship, preferring to be the dumper rather than the dumpee. With an oddly appropriate doo wop sway for such a depressing song, Thompson sings “there's no use to pretend. You're just gonna leave me baby in the end. Why wait for you to break my heart?”
Thompson even finds he can find no solace in that staple of country breakup bandages, the jukebox. On “Record Player”, he tries to go out to the club to dance his cares away, only to find songs that “sound like nails on a blackboard.” Proving himself an old soul rather than someone who straddles the line between Gen X and Millennial (Thompson was born in 1976), he returns home to his record player to seek comfort in the old rockabilly, r&b, and vocal group tunes of the early rock era.
While it may be full of sad songs, Teddy Thompson keeps a smart pop sensibility throughout Heartbreaker Please. Only one song breaks the four minute mark and Thompson keeps the pace steady and the tempo up enough to never make the subject matter feel like a drag. Despite the multiple very obvious tips of the musical hat to everyone from Buddy Holly to The Orioles to Jackson Browne, Thompson never feels like a retread. Rather, he plays the role of torchbearer, updating sounds that have stood the musical test of time and bending them to his needs.