Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
To be raw is to revel in a glory that the polished will never quite understand. To be raw, to lay down a law of music that must be appreciated for its frankness and its blunt charm is to gather at the gates of honesty and hang loose, drape your future colours over the past and play with deft cool.
It is a rawness that Tom Vamos brings happily to his debut solo E.P., Love Sharks, an ache of knowing that you are standing upon your own two feet and delivering your own personal message, and whilst there may be good people alongside you, that sense of personality is all yours.
Assisted by the superb Vily Raze and Sefton Booth, Tom Vamos brings the love and the pain of such knowledge to the fore, he brings affection for the otherwise impartial, keenness for those who find it irresistible and the ravaging, the ferocity of the animal who has been wounded by such interactions, being drowned out in anguish. Tom Vamos makes the debut E.P. grip the senses in the same way as the burgeoning, precouis talent of Allen Ginsberg did when he first muttered the words to howl.
Anguish, loss and pain, it is a potent mix to try and replicate, it takes honesty to do so and the rawness of Time having been defeated by the simple act of human behaviour. It is in this that the songs Love Heart, Honeyhug, Vinegar and Island stand out, the pain is all too real and yet it is disguised well, as one would want to have appearances kept and to not show the enemy that they hurt, that they feel.
An explosive solo debut by Tom Vamos, time spent well in the studio, raw but verging on the refined, basic but oh so natural, the experience of the man showing through greatly; Love Sharks has attitude, beautiful savagery and bite.
Love Sharks is released on the 23rd July. E.P. launch show at Maguires in Liverpool on the 23rd July.
Ian D. Hall