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Knightley is at his best in songs such as ‘Country Life’, ‘Crooked Man’ and ‘Roots’: pointed commentaries on rural life and big politics. In Cruel River he continues mining the same edgy storytelling vein.

He sings of “a thousand tales of the deep and the stormy brine” in ‘Tall Ship Story’, and it’s these stories that are the key to Knightley’s success, from ‘Transported’, a tale of West Country sheep rustlers to ‘Poppy Day’ which sees Knightley pointing his sharpened song at the heroin trade and British foreign policy though the eyes of a soldier in Afghanistan.

The album includes a re-write of ‘Crooked Man’, Knightley’s own farewell to his favourite prime minister, and obviously not content with the level of vitriol in his first iteration of the song.

This is one that gets better with each listen.

Links:
www.showofhands.com