Track Listing

1. You Cut Her Hair
2. End Of The World News (Dose Me Up)
3. 2nd Law
4. Bloodless
5. Draw Down The Stairs
6. One More Mile
7. Boy With The Bubblegun
8. Hidden Camera Show
9. A And B Song
10. Language Of Fools
11. Untitled
12. Sao Paolo Rain
13. Lightening

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35640 in Music
• Released on: 2003-09-15
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
In music there are entertainers, pioneers and thinkers. Tom McRae is most definitely a thinker. His self-titled debut album is a neatly laid out collection of those issues that most concern him: life, people's attitudes and society's flaws, masterfully dissected and examined in intimate detail with only tentative acoustic guitars and the occasional string quartets. This is the sound of a loner, a misfit observing from the outside a world that he neither understands nor particularly likes. From "End Of The World News" ("Driving in your fabulous car/listening to the music that reminds you/you used to be young") to the damning "Bloodless" ("We're the oil in this machine/and this machine is going wrong"), his morbid observations, delivered with passion and confidence, are astute, logical and a little too much to handle all at once. But McRae, for all his disturbing bouts of realism, knows how to write a touching tune, a tear jerking melody and a gorgeously simple song, and thinking aside, it's these ingredients that make his debut album mesmerising. --Dan Gennoe

CD Description
'Tom McRae' is the eponymously titled debut album by the Suffolk-born folk artist. Critics have compared his music to the work of Nick Drake and Tim Buckley. The singles 'End Of The World News (Dose Me Up)', 'You Cut Her Hair' and 'Hidden Camera Show' are included.

Customer Reviews

This guy is going to be big...
Now, this is really something special. It has to be said that there are just too many cheap, pop-orientatied solo artists around these days. But one good thing about this is that it makes decent artists like Tom McRae shine like gold. I've had the album for about six months, but even up until today (when I decided to offer a review of the album to Amazon), I still find myself sitting down with my guitar and attempting to play along with the wonderful songs. There is something in the music here that is at the same time touching as it is harrowning. Some of the lyrics and the singing is so sad, that it can actully feel colder in the room you're sitting in. I've yet to hear Tom McRae live, but at the nearest opportunity, I will.

The spooky and simple first track, 'You Cut Her Hair', is a good indication of the mood for the rest of the album, even though no two songs are alike. If the album had started with the more up-beat second track (and single) 'End Of The World News', then the album may have had a deceptive beginning, and the other songs could even be less approachable than they are. 'End Of The World News' is a good song for a hit single, but it's the only one of it's kind on here. Songs like 'One More Mile' are emotional songs of epic proportions, harking back to stuff like Jeff Buckley (remember him?). Other songs such as 'Bloodless' and 'The Boy With The Bubblegum' are strong, hard songs held together by nothing more than McRae's piercing voice. Beautiful and fearful. My personal favourite on the labum is 'Untitled', which just fills me with imagery of loss and passion, even if the meaning may be lost on me. I don't know.

I must say that between me and friends who have heard the album, there have been mixed responses. Many folks I know didn't like the album because they thought it was not especially colourful, or not catchy enough. I can agree with them there - none of the songs are especially catchy and sing-alongy, especially on the first listening. But the depth and beauty behind the songs appears over time, as it does with all good music, in my eyes anyway. The songs do end up in your head as easily as some tune you may have heard on the radio. But the songs stick in your head and could stand next to whatever memories you have to match them. If you have a sad memory, you may find a song here that will sit with it perfectly for a long time. If you have a good memory, you may find a song here that will be the perfect mini-soundtrack for it. I think that it's plainly obvious that McRae wrote each of these songs around a memory, or an emotion, or an event, and even if that particular situation is not aparent to the listener, the listener's own is, and becomes exhumed by the songs themselves.

Buy this album if you want to find some music that will grab you and really make you feel like there are still brilliant musicians out there. Musicians writing from the heart. Musicians writing for the sake of music, not money.

2000's answer to Nick Drake.....amazing
Watching Later with Jools Holland recently (admitedly to see the rather dissapointing performance from Badly Drawn Boy)I was spellbound by this folk singer who just did the one song on the show. That was all it took though, I went out the following day and bought this album, and was stunned by the content.

Simple acoustic guitar and haunting vocals are beautifully combined with flanged and distorted orchestration, making this one tight and atmospheric recording.

Choice listening on this album has to be the ultimately melancholy "End of the World News (Dose Me Up)", bringing in the con of religion against the world as we know it. Also, the haunting "Bloodless", telling the tale of presumption and unrequaited love. Lyrics like this make perfect sence, this man has lived and learnt and is not scared to pass on his knowledge.

This is a must in any music fan's collection as it demonsrates better than most the sheer brilliance of simplisity. Be warned about content though, Steps this ain't. But melancholy is the way that good music has always been, why change that. Tom McCrae - I tip my hat to you sir. Mesmarising.

Soaring and passionate
Other Reviewers have described more eloquently than I could Tom's passion, song-writing, talent and the haunting beauty of his music. Words that spring to mind would be seductive cello parts, angelic singing, soaring performance and soul-searching lyrics.

This is music to slit your wrists to.
That's no bad thing but it's worth pointing out the unrelenting melancholy intermingled with the beauty.

I'd always thought that this was my favourite album of the three he's written (and I think it remains so) but I've realised that these songs take a while to sink in. With a good deal of play, and having seen Tom a few times, almost all these songs have become surging anthems to be sung along to rather than simply admired from the other end of a pair of earphones. The other two albums are starting to have the same effect.

Buy this CD and it'll become a part of you.