Album review : FRANCIS ROSSI & HANNAH RICKARD – We Talk Too Much (2024 vinyl version with bonus track)

earMUSIC [Release date : 03.05.24]

2014’s Aquostic (Stripped Bare) was Status Quo’s first full blown tilt at “reimagining” older material in an acoustic set up. It was a big success, commercially and critically.

It led to this collaboration between Francis Rossi and Hannah Rickard (she provided violin and backing vocals on Aquostic), produced and arranged in much the same manner, first released in 2019 in CD form.

This timely vinyl version has been cut from the original analogue masters. For many, the vintage charm of vinyl adds a seductive sheen to the music. And the bonus track on this version, ‘Broken Memory’ provides one of those puzzling “why was this left off the CD?” moments.

Rickard is probably best known for her band Hannah Rickard and The Relatives, and while we might think of her as a rock singer, her intonation and articulation makes her a formidable country/folk/pop talent too.

Her duets with Rossi bring a beguiling sensitivity and emotion to these remarkably lean and confident folk/country styled recordings. The material – largely introspective – may lack originality, but thats not the point here, the songs have huge heart and soul, and quite deliberately, a distinctly familiar air.

You can’t help but be impressed with the imaginative cross wiring going on the in the songwriting – ‘But I Just Said Goodbye’s distinctive melody and tone owe a lot to country classic “The Wild Side Of Life” – a song covered by Quo in the seventies. And many tracks, most especially ‘I’ll Take You Home’ and ‘Heartbreaker’ swell with quiet yearning and melodic warmth.

The title track is a Rossi/Bob Young co-write, and has a bit more steel in its spine… you can hear them referencing Jeff Lynne in the backing vocals and Cheap Trick in the booming, powerpop guitar fills. It comes second only to the hooky, wordy ‘Oughta Know By Now’, the most Quo of any of these tracks.

The other musical strand in play here is Southern soul, and on the hymn like ‘Waiting For Jesus’ and the churchy, gospel tinged ‘Good Times Bad Times’, it’s hard to shake the notion that it’s really Rickard’s show. It strikes you that she, perhaps more so than Rossi, has an intuitive feel for these disparate musical idioms, and that she could take a number of directions from here.

Meantime, We Talk Too Much‘s enormously enjoyable collection of catchy hooks and irresistibly singalong choruses, supported by a rich weave of acoustic instrumentation, will do just fine. ****1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

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