Tom Ellard – Rhine (Sevcom / Bandcamp)

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Tom Ellard

In 2008 Tom Ellard announced that Severed Heads was now defunct as a studio entity after almost three decades of existence, and that no further new creative output would come from the band. Since then, barring two ensuing live tours supporting Gary Numan in 2011 and a final live show at Adelaide’s Festival Of Arts in 2013, Ellard, the one constant member throughout all of Severed Heads lifespan has kept his promise. At the same time, it was hard to imagine the prolific likes of Ellard staying away from the music sphere for very long, and both his comments during a 2SER interview and on his own ever interesting blog soon confirmed that he was working on something a bit different from Severed Heads, perhaps under his own name. The arrival of this album ‘Rhine’ finally puts rest to all of the speculation. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises though upon first listening to the thirteen tracks collected here is that they don’t depart from Severed Heads’ more recent work as much as you might first think.

Indeed, the familiar collision of electro rhythms and synth-pop and oblique yet vivid lyrics in evidence here wouldn’t sit out of place if put alongside the likes of Sevs’ ‘Under Gail Succubus.’ As previously hinted by Ellard though, ‘Rhine’ is very much a singing album, and if anything his vocals and lyrics occupy the centrepiece more here, and there’s certainly a more layered and ambitious feel to the scope of the backing arrangements. In some ways it’s like discovering that Severed Heads always a slightly older and more refined sibling who’s just been off studying in Peru until now. ‘CEO’ opens this collection with crisp house rhythms building into a surging mass against elegant piano keys and buzzing electronic effects, Ellard’s lyrics hinting at the fall of some great figure (“Icarus descends / the great man is down”), as an undertone of melancholy trails at the very edges.

‘Mir Ist Es Kalt’ meanwhile gets more opulent-sounding, sending sampled orchestration swirling against a backdrop of brooding bass synths and steely sounding electro snares, Ellard’s oblique vocals forming a curiously calming counterpoint to the mechanistic beats (listen closely and there’s even a trail of fairy dust halfway). ‘Fingers’ takes things off on an eerie midtempo wander that calls to mind parts of ‘Bad Mood Guy’ as Ellard’s slightly creepy vocals swell against ominous distorted synths and stripped back drum machine beats, in what’s easily one of the most goth-y moments to be found here. Elsewhere ‘Star Beacon (Of Five)’ vividly sums up the beautiful yet slightly unsettling aesthetic at work (indeed, the accompanying music player image seems to obliquely refer to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, unless I’m mistaken) as samples of someone delivering a eulogy float against a serene backdrop of swelling electronics and elegant plucked notes, before eventually wandering right out into shimmering ambience. An impressive return from Ellard that’s easily one of the most strong and ambitious things he’s turned his hand to for a while. More than anything else, he sounds like he’s seriously enjoying himself.

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A dastardly man with too much music and too little time on his hands

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