Album Review: Ry Cooder - The Prodigal Son

A fair while between drinks for slide-guitar virtuoso and roots-music champion Ry Cooder, his latest release The Prodigal Son returns after six years of silence on the release radar.

Cooder sticks close to form with the release, still exhibiting the retrospective flavour that has always been apparent in his music - even if the lyrical content does touch on more modern topics (see references to Google and Johnny Depp in Gentrification).

The album begins like waking from a dream. Instrument by instrument, Straight Street filters into the room like sunlight through a window. The opening track doesn't so much set the tone of the album as ease the listener into it - Cooder's style comes on strong in the tracks that follow: loose, dirty junkyard grooves with slide guitar that sounds like it's on the verge of spontaneous combustion and drum skins that have been detuned in that good, good Tom Waits kind of way. The title track begins with skipping effects and ambience that rapidly congeals into a gospel drive that earns its place as the main single. Cool guitar solos throughout follow the lead of the intro.