TOM ODELL - Songs from another love
Sorry to all the boys out there but, oh my goodness- this is pretty.
Girls, you will know Tom Odell through such projects as the music
on the Spring/Summer catwalk show of Burberry (if you're rich). For
the rest of us, it will be the music behind the advert for new BBC1
dramas and also the sad music behind the bit on Dancing on Ice when
someone has been kicked in the head by a blade or something. Emotional
stuff indeed.
Only 21, Mr Odell seems to have had quite a lot of luck of late. Though
his is undoubtedly a story fraught with cliché (growing up
in Chichester, moving to Brighton, being 'discovered' by Lily Allen
and then signing to Colombia, so naturally moving to Londinium), the
praise is deserved.
'Another love' is the song that he is best known for,
mostly because it possesses a raw pain that emanates from a place
in a man's soul far older than his years and people, particularly
those in the television industry, like that sort of thing. Comparisons
have been made to Coldplay and Jeff Buckley and, though these are
clear influences, they have been taken and moulded into something
slightly more his own. It is also unsurprising that a principal idol
is Elton John's as Odell's thing herein is predominantly soft piano
and gutwrenching musings and a sense of melody that, though predictable,
uses a formula that kicks the arse out of Ed Sheeran (and anyone that
does that has my absolute seal of approval).
As Odell and his spectral backing choir cry and wail through the line
'All my tears have been used up on another love', the multi-layered
power behind his songwriting is nothing short of awesome, at least
for one so small and blonde. At times sounding like The Lumineers
but without the country twang, and the final track demo of 'Stay tonight'
possessing the same poppy swoon of early Paolo Nutini, the production
is far more immense than any of his contemporaries and, by the end
of the EP, you can be assured that Odell writes the soundtrack for
every romcom that you are yet to see. Or perhaps an episode of Hollyoaks.
There's more to come when the first album is released
in June this year.
Released 29th October, 2012.
Anna C
http://tomodell.com/