AL STEWART: “Famous Last Words” (Permanent)

THE HAIR may sport more than a hint of grey now, the things he sings about may be a little on the old-fashioned side and he may well lack the incisive lyrical thrust of his compatriots Richard Thompson and Clive Gregson, but Famous Last Words is vintage Al Stewart, nonetheless, all jangly acoustic guitars and regular rhythms, backed up with sweeps of keyboard, fiddle and backing vocals.

Lyrically he still draws much of his inspiration from the pastoral poetry of Wordsworth and Keats, but underlying all of this is a sense of mischief that is extremely captivating in its boyishness – anyone who can use the phrase “peak of pixillation” in the middle of a line without laughing out loud at himself (maybe that’s what he was doing) is all right by me.

In amongst all of this cleverality, he is capable of Picasso-like brushstrokes, of which ‘Trains’ perhaps provides the best example. Checking in at over eight minutes, it’s a potted history of post-war Britain and the West, its shuffling rhythm underpinning the changes stage by stage, and by any standards is a fine, fine song.

The album cover says more about Famous Last Words than critical analysis ever could. Picturing Stewart surrounded by shelf upon shelf of books, it is perhaps the clearest indication that this album is wordy, overblown in places and extravagant.

That it is, most certainly, but it’s also Al Stewart’s best album for quite a while.

• Oliver P. Sweeney