Benjamin Folke Thomas

Copenhagen

Third studio album from Swedish finger-picker. Like a football manager with too many strikers, Benjamin Folke Thomas often seems spoiled – and even sometimes a little overwhelmed – by the talent at his disposal. A precocious acoustic finger-picker, fearlessly confessional as a songwriter, the promise he showed on his early only-sold-at-gigs acoustic albums has given way to full band recordings for three studio releases now, each of them frustrating in the best possible way. Packed with guilt, racked with remorse, Thomas’s songs reach deep into his freewheeling lifestyle, but in his haste to move on he sometimes shoots just wide of the mark. Older track Rhythm And Blues (“You’ve got the rhythm baby, I’ve got the blues”) nestles alongside the JJ Cale-like choogle of Hold On and beautifully crafted solos on the title track, but as packed with thrills as Copenhagen is, we still haven’t seen Thomas’s full potential just yet. Andy Fyfe