Tom Hingley
Thames Valley Delta Blues (Newmemorabilia)
Fans of the Inspiral Carpets will be surprised by this record. These who are however following up on Hingley’s previous release, Keep Britain Untidy, will not be taken aback by either the breadth or styles, or the seeming abandonment of the keyboard-heavy sounds of his previous band - who, to be fair, disbanded in 1995.
Almost as an admission - or warning - the press release states that Hingley “made the record I felt I had to make” as opposed to “the record I should have done for my career”. So when the hand-picked banjo opens ‘Waiting For The Walls To Come Down’ we should be ready for what follows.
Which is, in a world awash with singer-songwriters, something that could be just another release. Happily, it’s not. Instead, what we get is a masterclass for every bedroom guitar/vocalist, and indeed an album that could teach every King Creosote or Withered Hand a trick or two, and which takes your Blunts, Morrisons and Faulkners and knocks them out of the park. Hingley still has an ear for an instant hook, and - as fans of tunes such as ‘This Is How It Feels’ will recall, he wasn’t just about the baggy clothes, daft haircuts and swirling organ (anyway, that was Clint Boon, lest we forget). As he sings on “Gloves Are Off’, “Don’t hold your head down, hold it up and be proud.” Hingley has no-one to answer to given his previous releases but this release can only add to his legacy.
Donald Bush
