Album reviews: Tom Jones gets poignant, and Royal Blood singer makes the most of sobriety
Tom Jones.
As might be expected of an artist whose career encompasses the entire sweep of rock ’n roll history, Tom Jones has taken on many guises through his life in music.
He was the male Shirley Bassey in the Sixties — or, perhaps, Glamorgan’s answer to Frank Sinatra. And then in the late Nineties, he became an unlikely pop star with ‘Sexbomb’ and a frisky cover of Talking Heads’ ‘Burn’ Down The House’.
‘Sexbomb’, it is fair to say, is not an influence on his 41st studio album. Surrounded By Time is an emotion-soaked meditation on the death in 2016 of Linda, Jones’s wife of 59 years.
Devastated by her passing, he worried he might never sing again. And on Surrounded By Time, he reckons at age 80 with the fall-out — and the perspectives it has brought on loss, grief and his own mortality.
In many ways, Jones was not a perfect husband, and has spoken about his many infidelities on the road. Yet he does not hide his vulnerabilities on the new LP his fourth collaboration with Laura Marling and Kings of Leon producer Ethan Johns.
The vibe is contemplative as he delves into Cat Steven’s ‘Pop Star’. In its original guise, the tune was a riposte to record executives pressing Stevens to write hits to order.
Here, it is a brooding reflection on Jones’ seven decades in music. He later tackles Mike Scott’s ‘This Is The Sea’, conjuring with the same sense of big-sky wonder that rippled through The Waterboys version.
Jones is also in the mood to take risks. His voice is paired with a electric sitar on ‘No Hole in My Head’, a hit for protest singer Malvina Reynolds.
And he goes fully down the rabbit hole on Terry Callier’s ‘Lazarus Man’, crooning in an bruised chant against a backdrop of experimental jazz.
Royal Blood very nearly didn’t make it to their third album. Burnt out and in the throes of alcohol addiction, singer Mike Kerr was at the end of his tether — both personally and creatively.
Lifestyle issues aside, he feared he had taken Royal Blood’s Metallica-meets-White Stripes formula as far as it could be pushed.
But rather than throw in the towel he punched back. With sobriety bringing new perspectives, he and drummer Ben Thatcher have pivoted away from their heavy rock influences and instead drawn on Daft Punk, Justice and the Bee Gees. The result is a rollicking record with buoyant bangers (‘Trouble’s Coming’) and a precision-tooled hook-up with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme (‘Boilermaker’).
Those who didn’t get Royal Blood first time around are unlikely to be won over. The formula may have changed but this is the same duo churning out a ruckus. However, fans of their first two LPs will be cheered to hear Kerr and Thatcher shift the blueprint even as they continue to kick up a storm.
