Just Like Blood - Tom McRae > Reviews > Thicker Than Water

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money

Advantages:	Flowing melodies, vulnerable voice
Disadvantages:	Drippy lyrics

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Ever since David Gray gave up on the record industry, recorded 'White Ladder' for a few bob in his front room, released it himself and went on to sell four million copies, record companies have been scrambling to sign sensitive singer-songwriters, just in case they're the next Gray. This could explain why Tom McRae has been treated so indulgently. Despite the acclaim that greeted his November 2000 debut, the 28-year old from Suffolk was carefully left alone for two and a half years to produce his second album 'Just Like Blood'.

It was worth the wait. This CD is a polished gem. Its 10 tracks shimmer with a passionate intensity, each coupled to arrangements and melodies that reveal greater depths at every listen. For a mainstream release, it's about as far as you can get from most of the inanely disposable pap the music biz would have us swallow.

While David Gray had little but a beatbox and a tin tray to play on, Tom McRae, or rather his producer Ben Hillier (who has recently worked with bands like Blur and Elbow) is like a kid in a candy shop. If there's a musical texture on offer, he must have it. The songs on 'Just Like Blood' range from the rootsy style of, say, Gomez, to the neo-prog dynamics of Radiohead. Older listeners might detect parallels with Peter Gabriel's eclectic borrowings, or the atonal minimalism of late Talk Talk. A far cry from the 'singer-songwriter' image of the lone guitar-toting troubadour.

For instance, the drums and bass on 'Stronger Than Dirt' sound like prison doors slamming in the very bowels of Hell, while 'Karaoke Soul's middle-eastern strings create a simmering air of menace. Growling cellos and keening high strings give many of the tracks an atmosphere of brooding threat. Elsewhere you might find Nick Drake-style fingerpicking allied to Ry Cooder-esque bottleneck guitar, or Irish percussion sitting alongside rasping cello.

In contrast, McRae's voice is a more delicate instrument. Often high-pitched and tremulous with the hint of a lisp, it set me struggling to think who he sounded like. Eventually it hit me: Marianne Faithfull! On several songs, he comes uncannily close to her smoky cracked treble. To be fair, his voice is generally strong and expressive: building from a whisper to an impassioned yell in 'Karaoke Soul'.

If McRae is adventurous in his musical settings, his lyrics draw on more familiar experiences. Like many writers faced with delivering a second album, he turns to the reliable subject matter of tours and turnpikes on some songs. To his credit, he makes the imagery generic enough to be universal. And the feeling in the words is convincing, if sometimes vague, and can even be scarily intense. "If you let me I could love you to death," he promises in 'A Day Like Today'.

The songs deal with distance, separation and dislocation. McRae says if he were to describe himself in five words, he'd say "angry, angry angry, angry... and tired". No doubt partly tongue-in-cheek, the remark is true to the strength of feeling in his songs. In line with his public attacks on the shallow posturing of Tony Blair, 'Karaoke Soul' lays into political hypocrisy with lines such as:

"As you kick the dust from your perfect shoes
Your wolf suit is wearing thin and your real skin looks like it never bleeds".

Not quite the concentrated vitriol of Bob Dylan's political lyrics but a spirited attempt - although I wish he'd lighten up now and then, or employ a touch of wit.

He overdoes the watery imagery too: ships, waves, beaches and drowning keep cropping up. So it's apt that he comes across as a drippy romantic in his fondness for linking love and death. "And as the air slips from our lungs we'll sing songs of love," goes 'Walking 2 Hawaii'. "I'll swim with you til my lungs give out" he sings in the apocalyptic 'Mermaid Blues'. Such imagery had me morbidly wondering whether he could fill the gap left by Jeff Buckley. He might even fulfil the drowned singer's promise. Let's just hope he doesn't take his own lyrics too literally...

McRae has the quality songs and the passion to succeed. Critics and fellow musicians queue to acclaim him. It'll be interesting to see if he can maintain the intensity and invention that this album achieves. Its title is taken from a Simon Armitage poem which links blood and love (a little of each goes a long way). To risk a cliché, this CD is a grower. It packs a lot into 41 minutes, so don't expect it to yield up its riches on the first listen: a little patience will go a long way too.

Track List:
1. A Day Like Today
2. You Only Disappear
3. Ghost Of A Shark
4. Stronger Than Dirt
5. Overthrown
6. Walking 2 Hawaii
7. Mermaid Blues
8. Karaoke Soul
9. Line Of Fire
10. Human Remains

Price: £9 (P&P free) from CD Wow; £10 in MVC, Music Zone etc; £14 in HMV

Website: www.tommcrae.com