Tom McRae // Alphabet of Hurricanes

Alphabet of Hurricanes (named after a song which doesn’t actually appear on this album at all) is Tom McRae’s first album for Cooking Vinyl and he wrote it over two years of touring the world. Upon his return he bought a banjo, ukulele, mandolin, drums, violin an old piano and “other junk from ebay”, grabbed a few friends, went into the studio and created this his second album. His debut album was nominated for a Brit award and for the coveted Mercury Prize, and I had certainly heard his name around. However, I would give Mr Tom McRae the prize of Most Blah Artist I Have Heard For A Good Long While. The most excited I got about this dreary, lacklustre and tedious album was when, for a few seconds, I thought he was covering Good Woman by Cat Power….this did not turn out to be the case. Sigh. It’s inoffensive enough, just pretty boring…the lyrics are mundane and although musically there are occasional flashes of excellence it is definitely not enough to hold the album together. Think Paolo Nuitini if he was massively depressed and sedated. Sorry Tom! (I’m not really sorry).