Skip to main content

Tom Lumley and The Brave Liaison - 'Everything's Affected' Album Review


Tom Lumley and The Brave Liaison - 'Everything's Affected' Album Review


Following a sell out album launch show at The Grace in London on Thursday, Cambridgeshire band Tom Lumley and The Brave Liaison (Jake Day, Billy Stewart and Jonny Thompson) released their debut album 'Everything's Affected' on 22nd October.  It has 12 tracks, including the previously released singles 'Crawling', 'Fake Friends' and 'Haunted'.  The album represents the bands work over the past 4 years and perhaps more importantly it is packed full of bloody brilliant tracks! The band have been described as hard-working and they obviously are, I know this from watching their social media and the effort they put into their posts, their promotion of their singles, their gigs - this is a band that are invested in what they do and who make their music with passion - and you can hear that in this album. 

This is an album of predominantly high energy rock songs, with some reflective moments, ranging in subject from the end of a relationship, being unable to resist returning to an ex and obviously the self explanatory nature of 'Fake Friends'. There are songs full of swagger, such as the opener 'Modern Age', 'Shrink', 'Better Than This' and 'Casual' (some of which I have seen performed live and they go hard in front of an audience believe me) and then those that are full of emotion, including 'Chemicals' and the beautifully awe inspiring 'Hands of Time' and 'Better Days'. What they all have in common is clever catchy melodies with amazingly intricate guitars, big drums, strong bass and faultlessly delivered lyrics.

If I was "tied up to your parents bed" and pushed to choose my favourites to listen to whilst I'm there then I'm going 'Crawling', 'Better Days' and 'Haunted'. Can I point out I humorously stole that line from their track 'Crawling' and this isn't just the strange way I select my musical preferences.

Tom Lumley and The Brave Liaison are well supported and respected locally by those in the music industry - fellow bands, venues and the local BBC Introducing team. They won an award in September local to East Anglia recognising their 'breakthrough' success, and the fact they have played some of the biggest festivals this year - including Isle of Wight, 110 Above, Tramlines and were booked to play the unfortunately postponed Truck - shows that this band are gaining momentum and moving towards an even bigger amount of success in their future. 

As an addition to this review, this album did amazingly well in the iTunes pre-order charts and a well deserved place in the album charts later this week is hopefully on the cards. The band would love it if you could back them and buy the album on iTunes for £4.99 or a physical copy of the CD/Vinyl from the link in their bio. Hopefully my opinion and the taster of some of the tracks on this post has convinced you that they could be your new favourite band! 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Waterparks - The Anti Tour Show

  Waterparks - The Anti Tour Show Allow the self indulgence, but I'm going to write a review of my favourite band - Waterparks, who just did an online concert through Veeps last night - The Anti Tour Show (27th March). It's been just over a year since I last saw Awsten Knight, Geoff Wigington and Otto Wood live in London, and since this they've released two further singles 'Lowkey As Hell' and 'Snow Globe' which will feature on their new album 'Greatest Hits' out May 21st.  The stage was beautiful, set up like a forest. Awsten described it as "the most romantic woods you've ever seen". There was obviously a reason behind the bikes and fire hydrants entangled in the leaves, which I'm sure will reveal itself when the album is released.  As with all Waterparks events, the recording was amazing - overseen by Jawn Rocha, who seems to meticulously plan the filming in fine detail. It's surprising how much the varying camera angles, per...

Declan McKenna Zeros Tour

 Declan McKenna Zeros Tour J1, Cambridge Junction - 23rd August 2021 "Cambridge are the OG's... everyone in this room saw me busking in the street 5 years ago." Declan McKenna appreciatively told the sold out crowd on the first night of his Zeros Tour, kicking off in Cambridge last night. With the checkerboard stage set with glitter balls and confetti cannons, the atmosphere was electric! You better believe Declan was on top form wearing his glittery suit, and the set had everything that you could have asked for. This gig was a humongous deal for me as it marked my return to indoor gigs for the first time in 18 months, and I couldn't think of anyone better to do it with than Declan! He gave the crowd exactly what they wanted with a blistering start performing 'Beautiful Faces', 'Rapture' and 'Sagittarius A*' accompanied by the confetti cannons going off, making sure that the concert literally started with a bang!  Declan appeared to be full of ...

The Skinner Brothers - 'Iconic' EP Review

  The Skinner Brothers - 'Iconic' EP Review Tomorrow (Friday 7th May 2021) sees The Skinner Brothers drop their new EP 'Iconic'!  As their Spotify bio says, "The Skinner Brothers don't fuck about" and this 4-track EP backs up this claim! The EP explodes into action with two new tracks and two previously released singles - but with a twist. First up, the title track 'Iconic' starts with Zac Skinner's vocals and a guitar - then the beat comes in hard and we're rockin'! This is an amazing start, a track full of swag and attitude and will get the crowd chanting along "Iconic" in the build up to the final chorus. 'Iconic' is for winning the game with success against all odds "Get on it, step on it, subsonic, iconic." The second, and other brand new track is 'M.O.R.E', heavier than 'Iconic', it starts small and grows into an anthem oozing with self confidence. 'M.O.R.E' mentions getting up m...