Sting
The Last Ship
Reviewed by: Jane Roser
Released today by Cherrytree/Interscope/A&M Records, Sting’s 11th studio album and his first full length recording of original material in 10 years, is a different avenue for the 16-time Grammy winner. The Last Ship is basically the soundtrack to the play by the same name that Sting has been working on for the past three years and makes it’s debut on Broadway next year. The play and the subsequent album were inspired by Sting’s childhood memories of growing up near the shipyards of Wallsend, England. The shipbuilding industry in the town collapsed in the 1980s when the shipyard closed. As the U.K.’s Daily Record‘s Annie Brown recalls ‘[Margaret] Thatcher swept like a wrecking ball through the mines, the steel industry, the car factories, shipbuilding and engineering and oversaw the demise of the communities which had built their livelihood around them.” Think of Sting as the Springsteen of England and this album is his “Death To My Hometown”.
Featuring regional guest musicians, including Brian Johnson of AC/DC, Jimmy Nail, folk group The Unthanks and Kathryn Tickell who plays fiddle and small pipes not only on this album, but on previous Sting recordings, the album is folky in it’s feeling with a slight Celtic tinge. The songs tell of love and family lost, the lyrics are heartfelt and intricate poems, reminding me slightly of 1993’s Ten Summoner’s Tales.
“Practical Arrangement” sounds a bit like a Broadway play, which I suppose was intentional. “I’m not promising the moon. I’m not promising a rainbow. Just a practical solution to a solitary life.” It wouldn’t have been my choice as an early YouTube release, but it’s what his label decided upon. “And Yet” is better. The lyrics are more delicate and relate able.”This town has a strange magnetic pull, like a homing signal in your skull and you sail by the stars in the hemisphere, wondering how in the hell did you end up here.”
Sting is a born storyteller and like James Bond, nobody does it better.
Rating: Badass
