Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
When you have found yourself listening to a piece of music that leaves you feeling invigorated, refreshed and ready for the battle ahead, whilst simultaneously leaving the very best of thoughts, grace and boundless enthusiasm, then it is a piece of music to savour and cherish. For Thom Morecroft, the genial and certainly impressive import from the Midlands, his new E.P., After The Rain, is like finding out who Kenny Dalglish was after Liverpool signed him from Celtic or understanding just how good Lindsey Buckingham was after he first performed with Fleetwood Mac.
It has been a long time coming, the music has always been there, the talent that resides in the young man’s song writing has been more that overwhelmingly good over the years but as After The Rain and the four songs it holds onto with splendour and charm unfolds, what the listener finally hears is the result of slight variations to pitch and tone, of holding a slightly different stance perhaps and the voice range becomes even more dramatic, more earthy and very reminiscent of the young and aforementioned Lindsey Buckingham.
The sweet smell of the air, the glistening feeling of newly washed and indestructible that comes with the rain having drenched a city’s streets for a couple of hours is there in musical format as Thom Morecroft delivers his finest E.P. yet and one that proves a great springboard to the next album when that arrives with wagging tail and totting restorative action. The air always tastes sweeter when the rain has dampened down the dust, when it has cut off the heat from saddling the lungs with the urge to hide away in its own particular shelter. This is Thom Morecroft bringing down the rain to make the place feel cool, inviting and a prelude to the storms that the audience gratefully await.
The four songs, Time Will Tell, I’ve Made Room, Take A Look At Yourself and Find Me all crack open that final tale of heroics, of the journey undertaken by a young man and to whom life now surely cannot stop without the aid of a covert army hunting down the impressive talent; you can only feel sorry for them, art at its most purest, its most honest and sincere will always win out and enthuse others to take up the struggle.
An E.P. that is bound to feature highly on anybody’s favourite moments of the year; the man has come of age After The Rain has fallen.
Ian D. Hall