ALBUM REVIEW: Tom the Lion – Sleep
Courtesy of Carsten Petersen – the guy who thought that music died in 1974
★★★½
A new era has begun for this humble reviewer. I have now been writing for this wonderful site over a few months. The editor of this site invited me along to shape its identity with reviews about exciting music. Doing so, that much was clear, also meant that sometimes I would have to write reviews about new music, new albums, new songs that would be a challenge on first listen. I would have to expand my horizon beyond the progressive, the punk and the pop that I had known so far. I would have to leave the comfort zone once in a while (if you wanna call Captain Beefheart a comfort zone, that is…) In return, I was promised beautiful girls, cars, money, fame, good looks and of course being able to write reviews about music that I like. Oh well, I got the reviews about music that I like.
Now, finally the time has come and I am actually reviewing a new record. A record I haven’t listened and where I can’t just write down thoughts and opinions I have slowly build up over a long period of time. Time to do business, baby! The album in question is Sleep, the debut album by an artist called Tom the Lion, published in August this year.
Tom the Lion is a young dude from London who has been writing and producing his own music for quite some time ago, but that is ready to take on the world. The conditions for this young dude couldn’t be better. He has the looks, he´s got the hair, he has a really good high voice that effortlessly seems to travel along the higher registers while he makes chicks around the world quiver, and, he has a real talent in producing and playing his music. Officially, his style is always described as being on the experimental side. While I don’t want to put down this description completely, it could give a wrong first impression of the guy. Basically, this is pure pop music. The songs are short, up to the point and dominated by his voice. However, nobody can deny that these songs are all produced in a way that sets them apart from the everyday pop schlock of Miley Cyrus and others.
The songs on Sleep are dominated by an unusual, mystical, wintery kind of sound. A deep, echoey production, lots of piano, dark sounding acoustic guitars and all kinds of strange shimmering keyboards in the background that sound like music that you don’t really hear all too often. In addition to this, there is a very melancholic atmosphere in pretty much every single track on the album. Needless to say, fans of Motörhead and Slayer should better stop reading now. But if you are looking for pop music that dares to explore new sounds, you could find a winner here. Actually, I should be loving this record to death. Experimental pop with a dark atmosphere. This is actually corresponding pretty well with the ‘fucked-up pop song’, my very personal ideal picture of perfect music. Do I love this record?
Well, to be honest, not really. But first things first. You see, the above mentioned combination does make for some pretty interesting and engaging songs. The title track ‘Sleep’ stands out as the definitive highlight of this record as it establishes all the features of the record right away with a great, anthemic chorus to lift your spirit. Which is nice, cause the rest of the record doesn’t really do that and concentrates almost entirely on the melancholic side of things. Like ‘Ragdoll’, which you probably shouldn’t be listening to in the dark winter months, cause this songs provides all the dark, wintery, rainy feel you can handle – listen to it in the summertime when the weather is high.
Other standout cuts are ‘November’s Beach’, a track fully living up to its title, with that shimmering keyboard in the background I mentioned before, producing a sort of bittersweet feeling throughout. ‘Motorcade’, coming right after the opening title track, is another proof that there must have been a reason this album was released now in the summer. Listening to this stuff in dark December can be pretty dangerous for your hopefully good mood. ‘The Oil Man’ is probably the most unusual of the whole bunch as it is not really a song but more a collection of weird keyboard sounds with Tom (or whatever this dude’s real name is) muttering strange lyrics in what sounds almost like an improved manner. More uplifting, upbeat moments, which are badly needed on this record, are provided by the choruses of ‘Beholden’ and the final track, ‘Come to Life’.
So yeah, there are some really engaging tracks to be found. In fact, I can’t make out a single bad or offensive track on this entire disc. So what is the problem with this album? Well, first of all, I am not such a huge fan of the dude’s voice. It sure is good, but personally I am not a fan of his high, sweet ‘lets make all the ladies cry’ tone. The real problem is that he doesn’t change that tone even once during the entire album. Each and every single moment is delivered with the same pitch, the same tome, the same feel making even the more uplifting moments being almost indistinguishable from the general melancholic feel. The same goes for the record in general. The title track basically says it all, with the other 11 tracks just slightly varying the established mood and often sounding kind of interchangeable. As a matter of fact, I can’t shake the feeling that the main problem of this otherwise very promising record is a certain middle of the road feel. It is experimental, but only in a very limited way. It is pop music, but lacks the really sharp hooks that make the songs stick in your head. It establishes a wonderful mood but never seems to make full use of it cause the songs are still very poppy in their feel. The record seems to be kinda stuck, it’s an album designed to be liked by everybody, with not enough rough edges and too much polish to make it really outstanding.
Now, despite all my whining, this record shows a whole lot of promise from this young London artist for the future. I just hope that on further records, Tom the Lion will find those one ore two extra ingredients that are yet missing to make for a real masterpiece. To me, this album first and foremost just shows that you do not need to look for dead dudes in order to find promising music. Some intelligent youngsters might just as well deliver some surprises in the future. So,Tom (or whatever your real name is), in case you should ever be reading this review, and hell, why shouldn’t you, keep up the good work and keep exploring those dark corners in pop music.
