Mark Knopfler
Down the Road Wherever

After three years, personally much awaited particularly for the announcement of a new tour, the true gentleman of European blues returns with a solo album.

It had also been many years since I last left home with the intent to buy the new album of a renowned artist, a strange feeling. Have I become rich? Or a fetishist for a magnificent object such as a freshly printed CD? Or do I lament the old mechanisms of the music market and turn to this good father of all us guitarists to remember them?

Like in the previous “Tracker,” Mark proposes a series of expansive tracks, almost all of 5 or 6 minutes. But let’s not expect surprises or applause. These are the usual tracks with well-defined structures and extended instrumental codas. In fact, despite holding the power conferred upon him by millions of honors, despite being inducted into the Hall of Fame, the so-called “peaceful man of rock” remains true to himself and does not disrupt his work. The result, therefore, does not disappoint. Certainly, halfway through the album you risk a few yawns. However, Mark is a master at this too, as he knows perfectly well how to immediately restore engagement. “Good on You Son,” the sixth track and first single of the album, is indeed a track that bursts in decisively after three attempts at slow ones that I would only describe as “cute”: “Nobody’s Child” is the typical slow of Knopfler, exquisite but personally I prefer the rest. “Just a Boy Away from Home” is another typical and appreciable blues in its attempt to include the horns that will later become protagonists. However, the instrumental coda, a citation from the musical “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” is just a pleasant background with which I would welcome a few friends for dinner, yet without lingering further as the gentleman seems to want to. “When You Leave” carries on the same discussion, transforming friends into the girl you would like to date while waiting for greater commitment. In fact, the typical muted trumpet worthy of the best Fresu and Bosso appears with piano in the background. To be clear, if anyone else had written it, it would have been a wonderful song. It surely is also in this case, but it feels already heard and reheard.

Returning then to “Good on You Son,” one breathes greater freshness. A track as much roots as pop, but loaded with the groove that I like when I think of Mark. A successful use of keyboards in the instrumental that serves as the coda to the refrains. A timid and perhaps a bit awkward attempt to imitate “the rhythm of the Cockney rebel” inserted perfectly in the middle through four ethnic percussion instruments that are then maintained during the sax solo. Structurally impeccable track. Thankfully, considering how well the album started. The first two tracks, “Trapper Man” and “Back on the Dance Floor,” contain the same road song groove that makes you dream with your eyes open and you can place them anywhere. This is what fans want to hear, a song with bucolic hues, pastoral scenes, traps for animals that ruin the harvest, hunting, a decisive rhythmic structure and another equally dynamic with a more decidedly meta-musical theme, embellished by Imelda May's voice. Two optimistic tracks that welcomed us with a hug.

The second half immediately offers us four magnificent pieces. “My Bacon Roll” is the typical slow melancholic ballad from Knopfler, but loaded with lyricism and true roots hues. The overwhelming presence of the Les Paul's riffs is also the best way to reassure us fans about what we’re going to hear. “Nobody Does That” is a funky track that starts with a surprising electronic drum and with the synthesizer from the Tonto Expanding Head Band which did so much for Stevie Wonder’s success. The classic instrumentation then joins in, but the track remains full of effects wisely used. As if to say, Mark, with affection eh, but maybe, albeit 30 years late, we got there. Funky/blues in a minor key then, with a new splendid sax solo. “Drovers’ Road,” returns to rural themes and the life of cattlemen. Again, the discussion of the slow Knopfler style that we like so much is valid. True groove, masterful choirs, the power of musical writing that only he can give us. Here, however, it strays slightly. For once, it doesn't feel like flying to the States; indeed, the violin and the low whistle keep us firmly grounded in the British land. The resulting impression is a wonder. “One Song at a Time” is a more pop track, but very poignant as it is a sort of literary manifesto of Mark. The difficulty in fully returning to the contemporary music market, in reading the way music has been consumed in recent years. And sure, these are difficulties that someone like you can afford, let’s say. However, loyalty to himself and his life ideals has never waned and we know that. So there is no room for accusations of hypocrisy, “I’ll be out of this place, down the road wherever” and we, sometimes, will gladly accompany you, without applause, without exaggerations. Like this album, which presents the exquisite “Floating Away,” then two tracks not exceptional for me, but finally delivers us the short “Matchstick Man,” a kind of message of gratitude for what he had, a remembrance of the difficult career beginnings, a celebration of his bright present in Geordieland. In short, a man who doesn’t play the cursed artist, but who delivers us an album faithful to himself. Some yawns, I repeat, but also some very successful experiments. No exaggerations, however. Just good music.