Album Review

Tom Vek – Luck

• 9th Jun 2014

I’ve always liked Tom Vek.

I’ve never quite been able to put my finger on why I like Tom Vek, but with a new album on the horizon in need of reviewing, now would be a great time to examine the evidence and start validating my reasons.

Perhaps it has something to do with his outsider status, when he announced himself to the world he was alone amidst a resurgence of guitar bands, his angular music put him in good stead with his contemporaries but he never truly belonged to a scene. And from the off, Luck reinforces Vek’s stance as a singular entity removed from his surroundings, forget the music, just deconstruct his wares and listen to the sounds that have been pulled together to create his third long player.

The slowed down vocal sample that is woven throughout How Am I Meant To Know hums and throbs while a chiming guitar rings out, is at the same time disturbing and intriguing, lead single Sherman (Animals In The Jungle) has a triumphant indie-disco appeal, it necessitates messy nights in sticky floored venues, yet is tinged with a brooding negativity, and Broke must surely see itself fit for single release, trumping it’s predecessor with a robotic Transformers-esque breakbeat, a thumping drumline and something that sounds like a sampling of Bollywood horns, yet these bizarre textures build and blossom together into something ultimately danceable and irresistible.

The album unravels in a similar vein, with each new track bringing something new and entirely unexpected to the proceedings, always flirting with some dark sense of disco whilst sounding like nothing you have ever heard before, pairings of melodies and beats, plus a truckload of musical anomalies thrown in for good measure, whilst the approach is refreshing, it can grow to be overbearing, thankfully a couple of well placed tracks mid-sequence help to cleanse the palette.

Trying to do Better’s attempt at a rousing chorus is slightly misplaced and jarring, although judging by the track’s title it is hard to tell if that isn’t intentional and The Girl You Wouldn’t Leave For Any Other Girl provides a brief respite from driving beats by stripping everything back to a patchwork of clanging acoustic guitars, it is these two tracks in particular that provide a hinge for the album, defining themselves by being different from all that is already so different.

And it is through being different that Tom Vek appeals to me the most, almost a decade on from his debut album, Vek still has a sound that I wouldn’t be surprised was entirely bedroom produced, his music is challenging and defiantly danceable, and I haven’t even mentioned that voice, that distinct monotone that smacks of nonchalance and indifference when the songs clearly prove otherwise.

Venue: Luck
Support Band: Moshi Moshi