Top Ten Albums of 2012 - #5
Tom McRae's From the Lowlands [Digital]
Editor's Note: This is the 6th in a quasi-weekly series of reviews marking my favorite ten albums of 2012. The 10th edition is wrapped into the larger year-end post I call "The Ho Media Awards", which will be published just after the new year. Stay tuned!
Tom promised a second half to the HMA-winning The Alphabet of Hurricanes back when he was in the studio for that album, but I'm a jaded consumer of music - I've heard this before. Follow any band in the studio closely enough and you're sure to read something like this at some point: "Hey guys, we have cut 249 songs for this album! Can't wait to share them with you!!!" But oh me of little faith: here is the second half of the AOH cycle. And it's glorious.
At first I thought this was just an EP of leftovers, but I posed the question to the man himself on his forum and it was confirmed that this is a full length album. Seeing only 9 tracks was a bit disappointing, but at 44:10, it definitely plays like an LP should. This is both good and bad. Good, because it's a healthy serving of one of my favorite guys on earth. Bad, because...well...damn he's depressing. His self-title debut is a massive downer, but it's lightened by "Draw Down the Stars" and "One More Mile" right in the middle. FTL (and yes, it's been very difficult to train myself to read those letters as anything other than "faster than light") has no such centering balm, notwithstanding the chirping birds that accent the acoustic quasi-ballad "Fuck You, Prometheus."
So why is it number 5 on the year? Because every single one of these songs is made of aural gold. Yes, taken all together, it's a bit of a pill. But the outstanding beauty of this album is in its simplicity. Bands and singers often find an instrument or a sound that defines a particular album. In this case, it's Tom's vocals that take front and center in every song. Instrumentation is kept to a minimum throughout so that the naturally melancholy strains of his voice can shine through. And as always, he turns out brilliant lyrics in those signature soft tones: "At night when I have drunk enough/And I'm full of hope and wine/I recall a melody/Your voice and mine/We can still be king and queen/If only for tonight/'Cause somewhere in our history/The future's shining bright."
He has since mentioned that he wants to "move on" from this sound and that hopefully this will be the last album he writes that makes you want to open a vein. Unfortunately, given my disproven doubts last time, I'll have to believe him now. The next album is already due out late next year, so we don't have long to wait to find out exactly where he's headed next. In spite of my hesitation, I trust it will be somewhere awesome.
Album Highlights: Fuck You, Prometheus; All That's Gone; The Alphabet of Hurricanes
Tom promised a second half to the HMA-winning The Alphabet of Hurricanes back when he was in the studio for that album, but I'm a jaded consumer of music - I've heard this before. Follow any band in the studio closely enough and you're sure to read something like this at some point: "Hey guys, we have cut 249 songs for this album! Can't wait to share them with you!!!" But oh me of little faith: here is the second half of the AOH cycle. And it's glorious.
At first I thought this was just an EP of leftovers, but I posed the question to the man himself on his forum and it was confirmed that this is a full length album. Seeing only 9 tracks was a bit disappointing, but at 44:10, it definitely plays like an LP should. This is both good and bad. Good, because it's a healthy serving of one of my favorite guys on earth. Bad, because...well...damn he's depressing. His self-title debut is a massive downer, but it's lightened by "Draw Down the Stars" and "One More Mile" right in the middle. FTL (and yes, it's been very difficult to train myself to read those letters as anything other than "faster than light") has no such centering balm, notwithstanding the chirping birds that accent the acoustic quasi-ballad "Fuck You, Prometheus."
So why is it number 5 on the year? Because every single one of these songs is made of aural gold. Yes, taken all together, it's a bit of a pill. But the outstanding beauty of this album is in its simplicity. Bands and singers often find an instrument or a sound that defines a particular album. In this case, it's Tom's vocals that take front and center in every song. Instrumentation is kept to a minimum throughout so that the naturally melancholy strains of his voice can shine through. And as always, he turns out brilliant lyrics in those signature soft tones: "At night when I have drunk enough/And I'm full of hope and wine/I recall a melody/Your voice and mine/We can still be king and queen/If only for tonight/'Cause somewhere in our history/The future's shining bright."
He has since mentioned that he wants to "move on" from this sound and that hopefully this will be the last album he writes that makes you want to open a vein. Unfortunately, given my disproven doubts last time, I'll have to believe him now. The next album is already due out late next year, so we don't have long to wait to find out exactly where he's headed next. In spite of my hesitation, I trust it will be somewhere awesome.
Album Highlights: Fuck You, Prometheus; All That's Gone; The Alphabet of Hurricanes
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