Aiming high

SKYBOUND ~ Tom Baxter

Simply put, there’s just no other man who can make a happy song sound so sad.

While the album has been available for months from his website, its only now being widely released in shops. "Skybound" is the long awaited follow-up to Tom Baxters excellent (and mostly unknown) debut "Feather & Stone".

Like his first, the album has a relatively short number of songs (10), but since some of them have Meatloaf length running times, you are still getting more than your moneys worth from Tom. The production is exquisite and features a far more varied use of instrumentation than heard on his debut. He has also become a little more musically adventurous these past few years and on a number of tracks he breaks away from his traditional rocky/folkly sound to incorporate some Latin flavored beats and even some gorgeous classical flourishes.

The highlight of the album is of course Tom’s voice, which is so wrought with emotion that you'd believe he'd been all the way to hell and back and lived to tell the tale :P Even though the album ends on quite an uplifting song, the preceding few tracks are quite heavy and much more melancholic than anything he's recorded before. It would make for a much more rounded and enjoyable listen if the sadder songs were spread evenly throughout the disc.

But sad songs or not, Toms voice is always a moving experience and the lush orchestrated sounds of the album only help to amplify the intensity of his music and lyrics. I thoroughly recommend "Skybound" for those in search of a bit of substance.

Standout Tracks:

• Night Like This
• Skybound
• Better
• Miracle
• The Last Shot
• Icarus Wings