Tom Odell

LONG WAY DOWN (Columbia)

3/20

This album may be the zenith for manufactured Brit School heartache. Music that really shit couples fall in love to. Odell is an individual who the NME have slated for being dull and unoriginal. The NME! His dad subsequently rang in to complain. You couldn’t make this stuff up. But it’s not really young Tom’s fault. The truly saddening thing is watching the industry gleefully flex its marketing muscles and get a guy to number one who, if he had slightly wonky teeth or an opinion of some kind, would be playing open-mic nights and applying for the X-Factor. And despite the heartstring-tugging aesthetic, there’s little here to suggest Odell has the ability to convey emotion through music. “I wanna cry, I wanna love, but all my tears have been used up on another love” he says on Another Love. Don’t believe you mate. And you say ‘love’ so that it rhymes with ‘stove’. “I’ve been feeling pretty small, sometimes I feel like I’m slipping down walls” he claims on Sense. Bullshit, no you haven’t. “I think it’s going to rain today” he says on I Think It’s Going To Rain Today. OK, maybe you do think that. But we can only hope this is the zenith, the Everest of manufactured UK pop drabness. Cause if there’s another level up then god help us.

– – – – – – – – – –

Words: Geraint Davies