(stingy 2-TRACK SINGLE/ 2000)
There�s been much said about the speculated genius of singer-songwriter Tom McRae of-late, yet his dark acoustic swipes at life and love fail to immediately catch or mesmerise. It�s all done softly and subtly, but Tom�s not a luvved-up mellow man riding as high as, say, Matthew Jay sounds to be. McRae�s a man obsessed, his brand of Lo-fi melancholy clipping the tip of I Am Kloot�s more commercial iceberg when it comes to being misunderstood, obsessed and ripe with inflamed jealously. Throughout the infatuated-with-her �You Cut Her Hair� (about sweet revenge on an ex-girlfriend, he says) there�s no backing drum beat, just cello strings to aid the art of strangling amidst his sorrows: �Time has coloured in the black and white of your sin.� �Draw Down The Stars� is more nostalgically rose-hued, yet no chirpier in the pace department. Influenced by lone singer/song-scribers who�ve trail-blazed before him such as Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Finn, while continuing in his groping tradition of subtly finger-picking his melody, this is folk at its most depressing � yet it is emotive, inspired and loving. Just teasingly open-ended and unresolved� �We all know each others� secrets.� As genre-manipulating as he is, I can�t imagine many people are going to be able to put-up with an album full of quaint ditties like these. Simply, he needs to liven his muse up and make his ramblings less esoterically downbeat. (STEVE RUDD)
YOU MIGHT FEEL THE NEED TO TAKE A TOMMY GUN TO HIS HEAD�
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