Taking the title to musical heart (the album cover pointedly having him sporting different looks), after two albums mining country, reunited with producer David Mansfield who contributes, among other things, guitars, pedal steel, lap steel, celesta and Ondes martenot, alongside drummer Charley Drayton, bassist Tony Scherr and keyboard player Andy Burton, Teddy Thompson’s latest album, Never Be the Same, digs back into rockier seams for his first album of original material since 2020 and, with influences ranging from Crowded House and The Beatles to his father Richard Thompson, songs exploring love, change and the passage of time.
With John Grant on synthesizers, there are, though, still country ballad traces to album opener ‘Come Back’ with its major chords and…