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Louder
Louder
Entertainment
David Quantick

"Gorgeous songs, sung in a voice that sounds like it's lived a life that's full": Mark Knopfler repeats his formula to great effect on One Deep River

Mark Knopfler: One Deep River cover art.

To paraphrase Kenneth Tynan on Eugene Ionesco, once you’ve heard all of Mark Knopfler’s solo albums, you’ve heard one of them. 

There’s one or two reflective world-weary ballads, a couple of reflective world-weary toe-tappers, and some finely wrought reflective world-weary character studies that are self-contained short stories. 

Because the thing about Knopfler’s solo albums – of which this is the tenth, if you don’t count soundtracks – is that it doesn’t matter that they’re all cut from the same cloth, because it’s a brilliant cloth, part Dylan, part folk, part stadium melancholy. 

One Deep River is one of Knopfler’s best. These are gorgeous songs, sung in a voice that sounds like it’s lived a life that’s full, and the character songs – which Knopfler has excelled at since Sultans Of Swing – are as poignant as ever. Roll on album number 11.

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