Peter Frampton‘s newest album, “Thank You Mr. Churchill,” reinforces the artist’s status as a rock guitar veteran and finds him exploring new plateaus. Sculpted around Frampton’s fret work, the new set has a heavier, more immediate sound that deviates from the melodic flow of his Grammy Award-winning 2006 release, “Fingerprints.” Against a persistent guitar riff on the title track, Frampton thanks Winston Churchill for bringing his father back from Word War II, which ultimately allowed him to be born, but he places it in a broader context of “waging peace, instead of waging war.” The autobiographical track “Vaudeville Nanna and the Banjolele” features a mellow ukulele groove combined with soft percussion, while on the two-part instrumental “Suite Liberte,” Frampton sticks to what he does best: playing beautiful, Pink Floyd-like guitar melodies. Elsewhere, the Funk Brothers join in on “Invisible Man,” a Motown tribute that incorporates a number of Hitsville USA titles and surprisingly finds Frampton getting funky on the guitar.
