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| Track List: 1. For The Restless 2. Hummingbird Song 3. The Girl Who Falls Downstairs 4. How The West Was Won 5. Packing For The Crash 6. It Ain't You 7. Strangest Land 8. My Vampire Heart 9. Silent Boulevard 10. Still Lost 11. Border Song Running time: 48 minutes Released: 2005 |
Tom McRae burst into my consciousness with his eponymous debut album, which was Mercury-nominated. I saw him tour it and then bought 4 more over the years that followed. To be honest, my impression now is that I should have stopped after the second (Just Like Blood) as the consistency dropped with the years. This is his third album, and whilst there are still a couple of good songs that I recognise and will definitely be keeping in the track list, I anticipate cutting some chaff here after the listen too.
McRae has a distinctive voice, somewhat strangled and strained. Quiet but edgy. It is the standout element of the opening track, which is otherwise quite plodding and far from engaging. The lyrics repeat too much and the music is uninspired. The general ambiance it creates is pretty strong but, maybe it's the tired mood I am in, whilst it evokes a solid image, it provides very little engagement with it. It is like looking at a painting on a TV screen - one step removed. The same goes for Hummingbird Song, which has a very similar structure. Vocal over very sparse but deliberate tune. This is less taught than the first song, but there are elements of tension in the sharp electrics. Neither song has engaged, and in parts this one feels like a less interesting retread of an earlier song, whose name escapes me this second. If that same flawed memory serves the next three songs are the heart of the album however, so maybe things will improve presently.
Certainly they introduce more music. There is a greater tunefulness, more songcraft and more to listen to. I find McRae to have a problem with repetition though, it just feels as though there is too much chorus and not enough verse. I do not believe that is a fair criticism, but it is the honest reaction that smacks me in the face listening to The Girl Who Falls Downstairs. I quite like it, but it just feels like I have heard everything within the first moments of a five minute track. It is an odd impression.
How the West Was Won is probably my favourite tune from this album. This is the example of how McRae did not completely leave me behind. The song as story. It is long, but lyrical, it is pretty and arranged with haunting strings that pull at emotions. The overall tone is quite sad, reflective but there are swells and lulls in the course that means it always offers something. Choruses are delivered differently, bridges put focus on brass. It is not a pop song (as I see them) for it lacks the uniformity. I have always liked its lyrics as companion to the tune. They would not win any awards when read, but they fit the piece as presented on record and beat some of the other efforts on the disc. Like Packing for the Crash where the title is pretty much the only lyric, repeated too often to be interesting. The music is pretty bland too, but it does at least have some depth of sound.
I will be honest here: whilst I recognise about half of the remaining song titles, they do not breed any sense of interest for me, or conjure the songs to mind. This is the problem with mid-to-late Tom McRae, too much is eminently forgettable. His voice and vocal style are very recognisable and he has it within him to write some decent songs, Tom McRae was packed with tight songs, dripping with angst and developed enough to work. These songs? Half have no arrangement of note, the other half have nothing of interest either lyrically or in delivery.
OK, that is a bit hyperbolic but I am prone to that. In truth, I have just drifted a little from this style of music. I went through a phase of loving singer/songwriter stuff almost exclusively, and probably buying the approach more than the actual output. From where I sit now, albums like this one do not stack up well against the wider nature of my library. It is not that he cannot write, cannot play, cannot sing - just that he does not do so in a way that speaks to the me of 2014 with his songs of 2005. There is a lot more depth to the second half here than I have conveyed here; were I interested in a fair criticism I would mention the ache of My Vampire Heart. Instead I am just going to opine about how much more I got from his first album which, hell, may not even stand up when I eventually get to it in a year or more.
I got into Tom McRae at the same time as I got into Ed Harcourt and the two have had similar career paths in terms of the impressions their albums left on me. Good starts, tailing off into mediocrity whilst still providing me with the odd reminder of why I liked them to start with. I should really have bought fewer albums by both, not bought on name and regretted it later but made informed purchases. But if I had done that I would never have heard How The West Was Won or Visit From the Dead Dog which appear on albums I am otherwise indifferent to.
I cannot honestly say how much of this I want rid of. I am in an odd mood this evening which is perhaps colouring this post and I can see merits in several tracks here. I am just not sure they are merits that warrant keeping them. Something to think on.
McRae has a distinctive voice, somewhat strangled and strained. Quiet but edgy. It is the standout element of the opening track, which is otherwise quite plodding and far from engaging. The lyrics repeat too much and the music is uninspired. The general ambiance it creates is pretty strong but, maybe it's the tired mood I am in, whilst it evokes a solid image, it provides very little engagement with it. It is like looking at a painting on a TV screen - one step removed. The same goes for Hummingbird Song, which has a very similar structure. Vocal over very sparse but deliberate tune. This is less taught than the first song, but there are elements of tension in the sharp electrics. Neither song has engaged, and in parts this one feels like a less interesting retread of an earlier song, whose name escapes me this second. If that same flawed memory serves the next three songs are the heart of the album however, so maybe things will improve presently.
Certainly they introduce more music. There is a greater tunefulness, more songcraft and more to listen to. I find McRae to have a problem with repetition though, it just feels as though there is too much chorus and not enough verse. I do not believe that is a fair criticism, but it is the honest reaction that smacks me in the face listening to The Girl Who Falls Downstairs. I quite like it, but it just feels like I have heard everything within the first moments of a five minute track. It is an odd impression.
How the West Was Won is probably my favourite tune from this album. This is the example of how McRae did not completely leave me behind. The song as story. It is long, but lyrical, it is pretty and arranged with haunting strings that pull at emotions. The overall tone is quite sad, reflective but there are swells and lulls in the course that means it always offers something. Choruses are delivered differently, bridges put focus on brass. It is not a pop song (as I see them) for it lacks the uniformity. I have always liked its lyrics as companion to the tune. They would not win any awards when read, but they fit the piece as presented on record and beat some of the other efforts on the disc. Like Packing for the Crash where the title is pretty much the only lyric, repeated too often to be interesting. The music is pretty bland too, but it does at least have some depth of sound.
I will be honest here: whilst I recognise about half of the remaining song titles, they do not breed any sense of interest for me, or conjure the songs to mind. This is the problem with mid-to-late Tom McRae, too much is eminently forgettable. His voice and vocal style are very recognisable and he has it within him to write some decent songs, Tom McRae was packed with tight songs, dripping with angst and developed enough to work. These songs? Half have no arrangement of note, the other half have nothing of interest either lyrically or in delivery.
OK, that is a bit hyperbolic but I am prone to that. In truth, I have just drifted a little from this style of music. I went through a phase of loving singer/songwriter stuff almost exclusively, and probably buying the approach more than the actual output. From where I sit now, albums like this one do not stack up well against the wider nature of my library. It is not that he cannot write, cannot play, cannot sing - just that he does not do so in a way that speaks to the me of 2014 with his songs of 2005. There is a lot more depth to the second half here than I have conveyed here; were I interested in a fair criticism I would mention the ache of My Vampire Heart. Instead I am just going to opine about how much more I got from his first album which, hell, may not even stand up when I eventually get to it in a year or more.
I got into Tom McRae at the same time as I got into Ed Harcourt and the two have had similar career paths in terms of the impressions their albums left on me. Good starts, tailing off into mediocrity whilst still providing me with the odd reminder of why I liked them to start with. I should really have bought fewer albums by both, not bought on name and regretted it later but made informed purchases. But if I had done that I would never have heard How The West Was Won or Visit From the Dead Dog which appear on albums I am otherwise indifferent to.
I cannot honestly say how much of this I want rid of. I am in an odd mood this evening which is perhaps colouring this post and I can see merits in several tracks here. I am just not sure they are merits that warrant keeping them. Something to think on.
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