John Illsley

★★★ VIII 100%. CD/DL/LP

Dire Straits bassist’s eighth album. Sounds like Dire Straits.

Apart from Mark Knopfler, John Illsley was the only Dire Straits member to last the full course. They’re still friends (Knopfler wrote the introduction to Illsley’s recent autobiography), but with no reunion on anyone’s horizon, Illsley has taken it upon himself to maintain the legacy.

VIII is his most Dire Strait-ish outing, his voice assuming hitherto undiscovered levels of grizzle and his songs moving at stately Private Investigations pace. Illsley lacks Knopfler’s songwriting flair, but there’s a jaunty cover of The Beatles’ I’m Only Sleeping; It’s A Long Way Back examines his time as a global stadium filler (“there was so much I didn’t know… looking back it felt like a dream”) and just about resists the temptation to break into Sultans Of Swing; while Market Town, with its stentorian piano introduction, evokes an idyllic childhood. His personal and professional past remain untarnished. John Aizlewood