Tom McRae - 'All Maps Welcome' (Sony BMG)
3/5
By: Thomas Hannan
As anyone who has ever heard the marvellous 'You Cut Her Hair' knows, Tom McRae has some great tunes in him. And as anyone who's kept an eye on him since may have gathered, he's never really bettered it. Not a problem; who's to say you can't peak early and still carry on a worthwhile career? Nobody, mate. But what Tom is getting better at now is making albums that function as a coherent body of work. 'All Maps Welcome' is a peak of its own, but a different kind.
Moments of standout, utter brilliance are uncommon, but the classiness of it is the real triumph. It flows, reaches a level of sophistication early on and manages to stay there. It delivers. There's 'For The Restless', a clever shuffle of an opener, heavily instrumented but somehow managing to still sound decidedly sparse. The sound of our heartstrings being tugged at by McRae's pained delivery is all over 'Hummingbird', dipping you momentarily into despair before 'The Girl Who Falls Down Stairs' swoops you up again, swooning its way through what's probably as brash, bright and pop as he's ever gotten. Not blatantly, of course (there's a theme to be kept up, after all), but merely three tracks in, we're getting diversity here.
We're also getting a record the sound of which suggests a man who's found exactly what he wants to do with an album, polish it to a point where it shines, but with a light that isn't blinding, one that won't obscure the songs. He's not after gritty when there's glamour to be had, but admirably, not at the expense of the emotional honesty and way with a melody that are the only reasons we care about there being a third Tom McRae album at all. And he still really does write classy songs, ones that can be slightly peculiar as in 'Packing for the Crash', delicately deprecating in 'It Ain't You' or in the case of 'How The West Was Won', simply bloody long.
But inevitably, one man and his guitar retreats into slightly tedious, introspective moodiness, and whilst the flow and atmosphere are uninterrupted, the enjoyment levels plummet. It's not that we want him to leave the dark side un-discussed, for when he focuses on it in the likes of an eerily abnormal 'Strangest Land' the effect is splendid, but rather to explore it more interestingly than the dull traipse through 'My Vampire Heart', all too wet 'Still Lost' or a final overindulgent stab at 'Border Song'. It's easy to fall here, and so many do, and McRae is not (yet) of the calibre to avoid the pitfall, nor truly explore the possibilities a bit of a sulk can host.
Thank heavens then for 'Silent Boulevard', for whilst the opening few bars are drawn like a magnet to the prospect of more grumpy boredom, Tom, bless him, fights the urge and drags a great song (not to mention an impassioned vocal performance) out of it, loud and brazen, thick and powerful. It's a moment of release from a man who has previously enticed because of his talent for restraint, a new found love for his own capacity for elegance. And in the middle of really letting go, you feel he loves it most.
Artists in this article: Tom McRae
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