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While perhaps not as flash, or commercially successful as some of the others who also came up during the great British guitar player explosion of the late 60s, Richard Thompson has remained more consistently interesting than very nearly all of them.

Even putting aside his work with Fairport Convention – although something as great as their 1969 album Liege & Lief should always be kept relatively close – he’s built up an enviable catalogue since his 1972 solo debut, and copies of I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight and Shoot Out The Lights, both recorded with ex-wife Linda, belong in every sensible person’s home.

Hippies, Thugs And Heroes is his relatively swift follow-up to 2024’s acclaimed Ship To Shore, and was recorded with the same crack band, plus added horns and accordions, near the New Jersey home he shares with Zara Phillips, who chimes in on vocals. It kicks off with the 12-string guitars of Sorcerer’s Apprentice, an English approximation of Tom Petty approximating The Byrds. Thompson’s tale refers back to his spiritual searching in the 70s when not every leader was what he was looking for. Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking, the single, remembers other chancers and cads Thompson has run up against, as his Telecaster and Michael Jerome’s drums duke it out.

There’s a fallen soul who left a town called Hope long ago laid in a Pauper’s Grave, a tribute to the humble navvies in Unsung Hero, a dig at thieves in ties in the rollicking Everybody’s Stealing, and another conman scoundrel in guitar wigout Stringer. All are fine songs that testify to Thompson’s mastery of both Fender and folk.

Where he really gets you are the songs of heartbreak. Make Believe You Don’t Know Me has a love that’s best left behind, but the lonesome mandolin of The Soul In Me, which has, of course, died, is more desolate still.

Thompson isn’t finished, though. Pipe Dreams may have a jaunty tune, but he’s still dreaming about what he can’t have, and then, when you’re contemplating sticking your head in the oven and being done with the pain of living altogether, he finishes with Siren. The album’s best song – just him and his guitar – is the kind of thing you could imagine being sung 100 years from now or 100 years ago. A love keeps him from where he really should be because ‘love’s the only thing that matters’.

A master at work.

It’s a good time for Rick Wakeman to be returning to deep space and the surface of Mars. If only he can get there before Bezos or Musk land in a cloud of red dust and plant some sort of flag to claim dubious mineral rights.

They’re not the only ones aiming for the stars. Phobos – the oddly shaped moon that orbits Mars and was once thought to be hollow or some alien craft – will be visited by spacecraft next summer and have some of its soil flown back to Earth for analysis, which will be the first time that samples from the Martian system have been collected. Has no one seen the TV show Alien: Earth, which is looking more like a documentary by the day?

Thankfully, Wakeman’s follow-up to his acclaimed 2020 album The Red Planet is a more genteel journey, filled with the fantastical and musical notes that conjure up blazing sunsets across the Red Planet and hazy clouds of crimson dust as he once more trains his gaze on a world that has inspired countless films, books and music; more a love letter to Mars, and less things with teeth.

Talking of inspiration, Wakeman gives a nod to his late friend and musical contemporary on David Bowie’s Vision, vocalist Mollie Marriott (daughter of Steve) imagining the moment where the actual Spiders from Mars descended towards Earth, played out against a towering wave of church organ and amassed choral voices. To say it’s quite the thing is to understate it a bit.

For his part, Wakeman immersed himself in planetary research, data and mission reports from Mars before a single note was written. “Once I started looking at the new data and photographs, I realised there was an entirely new album waiting to be written. There was simply too much more to say about Mars – musically and spiritually,” he says. Which might suggest that this new-found geological spin on the Red Planet is lacking in romance or emotion.

Not a bit of it. Wakeman’s ardour for the celestial body hasn’t dampened a bit. Take the charged Noctis Labyrinthus – harried along by the excellent English Rock Ensemble band – or the swirling, epically felt The Epochs Of Mars, which encapsulates Wakeman’s wildly ranging musical highs in less than eight minutes. Positively deft by his standards.

What a trip.