There’s a predictable whiff of whisky and rolling tobacco about Mark Knopfler’s eighth solo record, an album that could have been written for the jukebox of a crumbling backstreets pub. It’s as much a collection of character studies as songs, and as a short-story writer Knopfler is hit and miss; the frustrated poet of Basil is nicely evoked, but the rootless boatman of River Towns is too familiar a staple of trad-rock to have an emotional impact. But Knopfler’s music remains a reliable source of warm bluesy guitarwork; the Dire Straits-aping riff of Beryl is a familiar pleasure.
