Tom Waits for no one as internal gurning and intestinal yearning run rampant on this five-tracker from floppy-haired fop Tom Branfoot, fittingly for Miles Hunt’s doppelgänger this is five star wonder stuff.
Another rusty nail is hammered into Brexitland’s corpse-casket on ‘Post-London Blues’ which details the frustration of Tom having to wait for a bus, but, wait, is he deploying that ol’ chestnut about buses and women (and men, it is 2018 A.D., yeah?!) and how you can go from barren slump to Baron Jump in the wink of an eye?
‘I can’t wait anymore’ he wails as one minute you’re nervously pacing up and down with no destination in sight the next you’re racing up and down with copulation fright. The gush rush hour. Listen to this in tandem with Ghostpoet’s ‘Freakshow’ for maximum effect-affect; London’s decaying demise never sounded so good.
‘I could make you mine’ has our doubting dandy gurgling and gargling more ‘woe is me for you to see’, the anguish etched and sketched for all to witness, especially his inamorata. ‘Could’ denotes uncertainty, this indecision revealing more than intended, however, if you snooze you invariably lose.
The 45′ at 33′ bpms of ‘Crucified’ amount to a goth-sock to the chops, Depeche Mode’s building block beats crossed with Bauhaus’s theatrical tantrums. Peter Murphy’s Law meets Martin’s Gore.
Surf waving washes all over ‘Hungover Heartbroken’ an excellent ‘morning after/mourning at her’ tear-jerker where OMD meet Crash Test Dummies, a gut-wrenching growling and howling tale of suffrage. There’s a wedge of (fellow bluff Loiner David) Gedgeian quality to the lyrics: ‘left in bed in my favourite shirt … a note on a Tesco receipt’ the minutiae of fleeting flirtations laid bare.
The aftermath of the laughter path permeates ‘Neither of us have anything’, as emotions dissipate what once seemed fruitful now feels brutal, with the harsh kiss-off ‘I was wasted on you’; a bitter swipe to the left behind.
All roads lead to home on this Northern uproarious release.
Sonic Traducer 