Teddy Thompson: Separate Ways : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

A former sideman to both his father, Richard Thompson, and Rufus Wainwright, Teddy Thompson travels in rarefied circles. But like so many other beneficiaries of rock & roll nepotism, Thompson lacks the fiery distinctiveness of his famous dad. Despite the presence of Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Beck henchman Smokey Hormel and Thompson's pop, Teddy's second album sounds remarkably like Australia's most successful musical export of the Eighties, Crowded House. Thompson not only bears a striking vocal resemblance to that band's leader, Neil Finn, but also writes and arranges his music with similar melodic smoothness: A would-be dance anthem, "Everybody Move It," instead appears as polite adult pop with lap guitar and banjo. When Thompson tries to break the mold on "That's Enough Out of You," this softie just seems unconvincingly mean.