Mark Knopfler
Kill To Get Crimson

Disappointed, or rather extremely disappointed by "All The Roadrunning", an album conceived and delivered with the complicity of Hammylou Harris, I approached this record with all necessary precautions: forget the latest flop, at least for me; erase the pitiful and disconcerting concert heard in Verona last year; eliminate from my mind any kind of expectation, that is, hoping for a CD akin to Dire Straits or something more similar to "Sailing To Philadelphia". In short, I believe I even succeeded... but... we're not there.

For heaven's sake, "Kill To Get Crimson" is elaborate, well-constructed, thought out, studied properly. And it is precisely these characteristics that perhaps diminish it. At a first listen, the CD leaves a certain aftertaste of BUT: but the leading song is missing! But the Knopfler song is missing! But the Knopfler touch is missing! That touch that made him famous and elevated him to the Olympus of guitar gods. His best songs are those in which he seems to sit on a chair and start improvising some magical melody, just like that, almost by chance. Here, instead, the opposite happens: Knopfler seems to have pondered every note at length. Everything is thought and studied excessively, and this CD risks being seen as a record by any ordinary musician: it could easily have been written by his brother David, talented, no doubt, but not up to par!

Thus, while "Sailing To Philadelphia" opened splendidly with "What It Is" and the title track and "Shangri-La" presented in second position "Boom, Like That", "Kill To Get Crimson" opens with "True Love Will Never Fade" (which, by the way, is the first single released): a very bland track that can safely be chosen as the worst of the CD. Of no greater value is "The Scaffolder's Wife", in second position: a negligible track that tends to be heard rather than listened to, and thus passes unnoticed. You have to wait for the fourth song, "Heart Full Of Holes", to hear something pleasant: a very sweet love song, although perhaps it appears a bit too sweet with the risk of becoming cloying. To conclude with the tracks not to be recommended, I add "Secondary Waltz", a sort of Irish ballad with sounds so dear to good Mark, but which is hard to digest.

For the rest, no track deserves particular praise; "Punish The Monkey", with its African-like atmospheres, is well done, as is "Madame Geneva's", in my opinion the best of the CD, built on a few guitar chords and primarily on Mark's warm voice, which fits magnificently along the trail set by "Sailing To Philadelphia" first and by "Back To Tupelo" then without being overshadowed by these. Lastly, "In The Sky" deserves to be mentioned, a dreamlike song, wisely placed at the close of the album: a track that allows imagination to travel, giving the idea of moving through boundless spaces... perhaps the song that best represents the choices made by Knopfler with this album.

Overall, "Kill To Get Crimson" is a perfectly homogeneous album, strongly built on his voice and far less on his guitar despite the touch always being skillful and never banal. Noteworthy is the significant use of the acoustic guitar in all the songs, while the electric is almost relegated to an accompaniment role (unusual for Knopfler). The strongly country and American-like atmospheres disappear. Flutes, percussion, accordions, ballads of distant times, waltzes... Could it be the new Knopfler? One might think that the ideas are missing: nothing could be more wrong. They are there; it's the musical choices that I struggle to agree with, but at least I'm consoled: Knopfler's artistic vein seems alive.

In general, the album leaves a profound sense of incompleteness: the songs flow, you get lost in the "buts", the album ends, and you don't even notice the end... It will hardly be remembered as Knopfler's best solo work, indeed... To those who are too attached to the other Knopfler, I strongly advise against purchasing it. But if, like me, you are Mark's fanatics and forgive him everything (Harris included), you cannot not have it. But then don't feel betrayed. See you at the Italian concerts in April.