Review Summary: Hingley offers his own brand of British folk music, which is full of brilliance and without the pretension that a lot of modern folk music tends to contain.
‘Thames Valley Delta Blues’ is the second solo album by Tom Hingley, the front man of the iconic ‘Madchester’ band ‘Inspiral Carpets’. Like his first solo release, ‘Keep Britain Untidy’, the entire album was recorded live and acoustically. Hingley and Inspiral Carpets left a memorable legacy in British music, but unfortunately this does mean a lot of people may overlook Hingley’s solo work, as it is a departure from the organ-based sounds of Inspiral Carpets. However, this is an album that should not be overlooked.
Perhaps the greatest aspect of this album is Hingley’s voice, which is superb. It sits perfectly on top of the delicate guitar work, and floats to and from falsetto with grace and ease. This can be seen in the melancholic, ‘All the Good Things’. As Hingley sings “so tired of all the good things in my life; so tired of all the lies in my life”, a listener can hear age and experience. This beautiful song is easily the best, and from it the album has a run of great songs, unfortunately this is abruptly ended by the dull ‘The Lakes of Fire’, a song consisting of simple banjo and vocals. The album does seem very minimal, but this song takes it too far. However, this is nowhere near as bad as the song that follows it, the clichéd ‘Did You See That Girl?’ This song really annoyed me, as through out the album I kept getting a feeling that this was something different, something original and something new to the artist, but then ‘Did You See That Girl?’ sounds like it could have been written by a boy band. It almost sounds as if it was meant to attract mainstream attention, but that is never going to happen. This album could never be mainstream, so this song feels misplaced and pointless. Luckily, this poor song is followed by brilliance, in the form of ‘Don’t Want to Be a Fighter Anymore’, a gentle ballad written about Hingley’s father with a brilliant slide guitar section. This song epitomizes what this album does so well, and again is a showcase for Hingley’s vocals, as he sings ‘don’t want to be a fighter; guess I’m not that tough’, the listener finds himself hanging of his every word.
A completely surprising addition to this album is the Craig David cover ‘Love Week’. When I saw that Hingley had covered a Craig David song I was skeptical, perhaps even a little bit snobby. I have never been a fan of Craig David, and I couldn’t understand why Hingley would bother covering his work, however he certainly makes it his own, and it certainly sounds good. It’s almost completely composed of slide guitar riffs, accompanied by high-pitched vocals and in my opinion is a definite triumph.
So, this album is composed of some great songs, with some great guitar playing and some great vocals, so why have I only given it 3.5? The reason is, like many other acoustic albums before it, it really overstays its welcome. The album, which would comfortably be 40 minutes long, is stretched unnecessarily to 61 minutes and it grows weary. If the songs were all brilliant it probably wouldn’t be such a problem, but the poorer songs really drag and make this album seem to last painfully long. Acoustic albums always seem to make the same mistake, because unless the album is completely flawless and magnificent, it’s a real struggle to keep the listeners attention when the music contains so little variation. Even with this in mind, this is a great album. Hingley offers his own brand of British folk music, which is full of brilliance and without the pretension that folk music tends to contain. As I said earlier, I know so many people won’t even give this album a try because of the legacy it has to stand up to, but this album has so many of it’s own merits and charms that to overlook it would be unfair. It’s a great album and a good listen.
Highlights: All the Good Things; Don’t Want to Be a Fighter Anymore; Thirst Born
