Mark Knopfler - Kill to Get Crimson [CD/DVD]

Given that Kill To Get Crimson follows Mark Knopfler's yearlong collaboration with Emmylou Harris -- inaugurated by the album All The Roadrunning and followed by a tour, subsequently documented on the live set Real Live Roadrunning -- it might be reasonable to presume that it bears a slightly heavier folk influence, as if Emmylou had rubbed off on the guitarist. And that's true to a certain extent: "Heart Full of Holes" has an old-timey carnivalesque lilt to its middle section and "Secondary Waltz" is simple, low-key two-step driven by accordions, while "The Fish and the Bird" is a spare allegory that recalls old folk tunes, as does the stately grace of "Madame Geneva's." Also, "Let It All Go" (the song that bears the lyric that lends the album the title) is a minor key dirge that could be seen as a winding folk tune, but it hearkens back to the evocative mood pieces that often up ate up large sections of the second side of a Dire Straits album, and that's hardly the only time either Knopfler's old band or his solo works are brought to mind here. Read More