take another hit, let the bottle slip (Tom Mcrae - Tom McRae)

Member Name: heatherrr13

Product:	Tom Mcrae - Tom McRae
Date:	02/12/05 (888 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 2nd Law, The Boy With The Bubblegun, Untitled, Sao Paulo Rain

Disadvantages: I Ain't Scared of Lightning

When I was at school, a lot of the boys me and my girlfriends hung around with were a couple of years older than us. This fact was never an issue between me and my friends, until the summer after we had done our gcse's when we realised that a lot of our friends would be leaving soon to go off to university. That was the summer of 2001, and we spent it lounging around in each other's houses, spending the majority of the time lying around listening to music. One day, I remember it well, a few of us were sitting around chatting when someone put this cd on. I instantly fell in love with it, and it was only a few days later that I bought my own copy. Listening to this CD now reminds me of that Summer, even though we knew everything was going to change and our friendships would never quite be the same it was still an amazing time.

Tom McRae is a singer-songwriter from the UK, and this was his debut CD, which won him a Mercury Music Prize nomination. According to the BBC website: "Not since Morrissey's heyday has a singer made abject despair sound quite so appealing."

The CD on a whole has quite a haunting feel to it, in particular on tracks like 'The Boy With The Bubblegun', 'Untitled' and 'Sao Paulo Rain'. His voice sounds like a cross between Jeff Buckley and Placebo, with a bit of a drak undercurrent running through the tracks. He has also been compared to Nick Drake.

The CD opens with 'You Cut Her Hair', which opens the album as it means to go on, with this track having a bit of a darkness to it. The opening lyrics are "time, has coloured in, the black and white, of your sin. So burn, burn the flag. Rip it up, and bury the rags." On this track Tom's voice stands out clearly, and another high point of this track is when the strings come in half way through. This definitely gives a 'haunting' feel to the opening of the CD. After the strings have reached a climax and then died down the piano becomes more apparent, and the closing lyrics really lodge with you - 'but I will find you still, move in for the kill. You cut her hair, you cut her hair. You cut her hair." I love the way the album opens with this track, it definitely sets the tone for the tracks to follow.

The next track is 'End Of the World News (Dose Me Up)'. This track is a little gentler than the opening, and concentrates less on Tom's vocals that the first track does. However, in saying this, this doesn't mean that Tom's voice doesn't stand out. The music in this track is more upbeat than the previous one, however the lyrics don't really follow suit: ' this is the end of the world news, sponsered by God'. Although this isn't one of my favourite tracks from the album I still love it, the lyrics are simple and are repeated, but they still manage to strike a chord.

The next track is one of my all-time favourites. '2nd Law' opens with a very quiet voice recording, and then a solitary piano comes in playing a few simple chords. Tom's voice then comes in over this piano, giving a very haunting yet magical effect. When I first got this CD this was one of the tracks I instantly fell in love with, both the music and the lyrics are beautiful.
"tell all my friends i have gone to the moon,
tell all my friends i will write them soon.
and tell them,
if you see them,
that i am better left alone."
It was lyrics like these that I really identified with while I was going through my teen-angst stage =D This remains one of my favourite songs because it is so simple, yet evokes such a reaction in me.

'Bloodless' follows, again not one of my favourites off the CD, but a goodun nontheless. This song is more 'hopeful' you could say in terms of the music, however once again there is an edge to the lyrics. This contradiction between the upbeat nature of the music and the downbeat nature of the lyrics is what really works so well on this album, it means that the tracks stay with you for longer, and for me, have a much deeper impact.
"so tell me again, what am i feeling, you know me so well, so what am i feeling, and how can you tell, i've got a feeling you don't know." I'm listening to this CD now as I write this review, and even on a track like this which isn't one of my favourites, and despite how I've listened to all these songs hundreds of times the lyrics still seem so fresh to me.

The next track is 'Draw Down The Stars'. The opening to this is very gentle, quiet notes, and Tom's voice comes in very quietly with a slight echo to it. This track is definitely what you could call 'pretty', and once again uses the simple method of repetition. This song is not very long, and the line "draw down the stars, draw down the stars, what's in your heart?" is repeated several times. Not one of the strongest tracks off the album, but memorable still.

'One More Mile' opens with Tom singing over a simple guitar tune. As the song goes on the intensity becomes stronger, the guitar becomes louder as does Tom's voice, and about halfway through a second voice comes in over Tom's for only a couple of lines, and then the guitar builds up to creating a much darker atmosphere, as Tom sings "And by the firelight I see footprints, Shadows circle on the floor, And everything is so familiar, We have come this way before." The way this song is split into two with the intensity building up throughout the first half works very well.

The next track on the album is 'The Boy With The Bubblegun', a track that has become very popular with fans. Personally, I love this song, when we listening to it back in that Summer, this was one of the tracks that we'd always skip to. It is so atmospheric, and every time I hear it it takes me back to that time. There is alsmot a tragic element to this song listening to the lyrics 'forgive me, for i am born to be what i must be. and i must be; the boy with the bubblegun.' For me this is one of the sogns that epitomises the whole CD, what the cd's about and what it means to all of us when we first listened to it.
"if words could kill i'd spell out your name... if songs could kill, this ones for you."

'Hidden Camera Show' directly follows and after the track before seems like a pleasent little number. But once again, the lyrics tell a different story.
"Hide from the world it will come for you, you have no place in this time. And it's the cars on the highway, it's the drunks singing 'my way', we're all caught in a hidden camera show. And it's the thrill of deception, it's the chill of rejection, in the faces of the people we don't know".
One of things that really stands out on this album is the fact that the lyrics actually mean something and are things that people can identify with. In this song the feeling of how everyone is acting and putting on an act for everybody else is something that most people will be able to relate to I think.

'A & B Song' is track 9 is relatively loud for this album, although it doesn't start out in that way, the opening is quiet and then the track grows and grows until at the end there is a mix of instruments playing over the lyrics 'the storm is rising in me, the storm is rising in me...'. The track ends abruptely with the line 'and all our time slips away'. A very atmospheric track.

'Language Of Fools' opens with strings, which die down once the vocals start. As the chorus kicks in the strings return, as the lines 'won't you hide me, won't you hold my life, won't you let me have this time. And lie here while I close my eyes, and hold me through this night'. This is a 'nicer' track in terms of the lyrics, but to counter this the strings are at times very haunting, particularly when the song moves away from the chorus.

'Untitled' is another one of my favourites. I definitely favour the tracks that feature the piano, I find them much more atmospheric. I love this track particularly because it starts out so simply, Tom's voice over the simple piano tune, but then a minute in it becomes even more atmoshperic for the chorus, the vocals become even more heartfelt and the piano even louder. This is one of my definite highlights of the CD, I love the way that the songs have such a simple concept but they still work so well and are so atmospheric.
"And we'll sail on the high tide, drift on the open sea.
I've been waiting for so long."

'Sao Paulo Rain' follows. This is one of those tracks that I never realised how much I liked until I really concentrated on listening to it. This is arguably the darkest track on the album, the opening line being "there's always a party on funeral row, where the cross flashes red to the street". As the chorus comes in the tune bobs along nicely and makes for what you think will be a nice pleasent tune. However, a quick chord change and everything is different. "Take another hit, let the bottle slip through your fingers and break like a promise made" is the line where things change, the vocals become louder, the drum announces a change and the guitar becomes much more prominant. That is one of my favourite lines off the whole album. After this the song takes a slightly more upbeat turn with Tom singing "we were so alive, we were so alive" but then once again the chord change comes in with the line "shelter me from this sky, dance with me one last time, sao paulo rain". I lvoe this track because of it's unpredictability.

'Sao Paulo Rain' is effectively the last track on the album, because track 13 'I Aint Scared of LIghtning' is just under a minute and a half long. It is a simple guitar melody with Tom singing over it, for this album it is a pretty positive ending. The album closes with the lines:
"No I ain't scared of lightning
And thunder never killed
I was born in a summer storm
I live there still
Yeah I was born in a summer storm
I live there still."

I adore this CD, not only because every time I listen to it it reminds me of my friends, and that Summer, but because each of the songs are special in their own right. The CD as a whole is very haunting, and the use of instruments is beautiful. This debut has (so far) eclipsed all of Tom McRae's other work, and I would recommend anyone buying it.

Summary: a fantastic debut album