Mark Knopfler
Kill to Get Crimson
(Warner Bros., 2007)

For nearly 30 years, Mark Knopfler has steadily built a body of work that is as wide-ranging, consistent, and durable as that of just about anyone making music in the same period.

He conquered the pop-rock world with his original band Dire Straits in the late ‘70s. Known for making radio- and MTV-friendly music and creating pristine, audiophile-geared albums, the group was able to fill concert arenas without resorting to the bombastic histrionics of lesser, run-of-the-mill arena rock bands. Flourishing through the ‘80s and into the early ‘90s, the group ended its studio run with On Every Street.

What has allowed Knopfler to remain so vital is that he takes on many different types of projects. After disbanding Dire Straits, he successfully scored and performed soundtrack albums, mostly for personal, idiosyncratic films such as Local Hero, Cal, and Last Exit to Brooklyn. Such evocative films benefited greatly from Knopfler’s sweeping, pastoral scores, which in many respects were the antithesis of the arena-rock sound of the later Dire Straits period.

Eschewing conventional solo albums, Knopfler also produced and played on a handful of albums, most notably Bob Dylan’s Slow Train Coming. With a light touch, he gave the various artists he was producing a polished sound, while maintaining their roots base and spotlighting their gift as songwriters.

Knopfler waited until 1996 to make his first proper solo album, Golden Heart. The album was a sweet, simple album of love songs that was as far from the sound of Dire Straits as he could get. Along with the soundtrack albums, Golden Heart, his album with Chet Atkins, and the one-off Notting Hillbillies project, Knopfler immersed himself in front-porch country sounds with Celtic overtones. If Sting, who sang on Dire Straits’ biggest hit, “Money for Nothing”, is a self-described Englishman in New York, then Knopfler is an Englishman in Nashville.

Since the dawn of the new millennium, Knopfler has slowed down on the soundtrack work and virtually stopped producing other artists. He has entered his most fertile period as a solo artist, along with making a studio album and a live album with Emmylou Harris. Albums like Sailing to Philadelphia and The Ragpicker’s Dream spotlighted Knopfler’s ability as a songwriter, while Shangri-La and the offshoot EP One Take Radio Sessions showed him having plain, simple fun making music. His newest solo release has to be considered his best and most confident solo album.

Kill to Get Crimson is the first solo album that Knopfler has made where he isn’t afraid to tentatively dip his toe in the Dire Straits rock pool. However, it’s not a return to that sound; instead, it is an album where Knopfler isn’t averse to occasionally playing electric guitar god, something he has taken great pains to avoid until now.

This solo album has the kind of confident, sturdy rock sound that Knopfler has offered glimpses of on previous works, but it’s on full display here. He begins the album unceremoniously enough with the easygoing “True Love Will Never Fade”, which does, however, through pungent guitar bursts, signal a slight comfort with the Dire Straits sound. He teases us with his guitar chords further on the lyrically evocative “The Scaffolder’s Wife”, which echoes earlier Celtic influences and is a clear reminder of what a great storyteller Knopfler is. “The Fizzy and the Still” is the kind of love song that only Knopfler could write. Its unsettling undercurrent is the perfect counterpoint to the song’s core theme of love. “Heart Full of Holes” and “Secondary Waltz” both sound like they could have been performed by a country band on holiday in Vienna. “We Can Get Wild” echoes Knopfler’s previous songs on which he lyrically tackled the vapid nature of rock stardom.

“Punish the Monkey” is a perfectly crafted and performed pop-rock song that exhibits all of Knopfler’s best commercial instincts. The smooth sound is ably aided by longtime collaborator Guy Fletcher, whose keyboard and production work on Knopfler’s albums has become an integral part of his sound since the waning days of Dire Straits. “Behind With the Rent” and “Madame Geneva” occasionally recall another artist who could play guitar god but doesn’t: Richard Thompson. The former has a reggae feel, while the latter evokes a Viennese flavor. There’s even a jazzy tinge to the album closer “In the Sky”, which, like much of the album, has a level of overall sound quality ideal for testing stereo equipment.

There is no question that Mark Knopfler is perhaps in the most prolific period of his career as a solo artist. By underplaying his gift as a great and singular guitarist and his more commercial mainstream rock sound, Knopfler has further developed all his gifts and is making music that will never fade.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]