We got to see another fine performance by Tom McRae at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire as he tours supporting his latest album King Of Cards.  I managed to capture some pictures with the mobile phone – more can be seen here.

Tom, has over a number of albums proven himself to a fine singer songwriter. But, for me the songs taken on something special when you hear him perform them live.  Even last night, whilst suffering ‘man flu’ sounded good, and delivered the songs with passion and emotion that lyrics carry.

Not only does he perform well, everytime we’ve seen him, he engages with the audience joking and telling stories, something that really makes it feel that he is there for you.

This time around Tom’s support was Steve Reynolds, who played a great little set, and went down a treat with the audience (no mean feat for a support artists). All that and playing his guitar while struggling with a broken collar bone. Steve’s performance was engaging enough that we’ve ordered the album (another import).

The final gem, of the evening is picking up a EP of Tom’s that I’d not heard of – The Strongroom Sessions (autographed as well).  Having not heard about it, I thought I’d search around for it today on the web and can’t find any reference to it – is his record company letting him down?

A Little slow reviewing this – having been out for a month or two. But I  have found that Tori’s later albums take a lot longer to digest as her lyrics tend towards the obscure. Although the  subject of the opening song on latest album American Girl Posse leaves little space for misunderstanding as criticism of George Bush.

The album’s song fluctuate from style to style as it delivers songs from different members of the ‘posse’ which it does with a fair degree of success. It seems that its each of the songs intros provide the clearest indication of which character is performing. 

Unlike earlier albums the presence of the drums and guitar are a lot more noticeable giving album a more driven feel overall where as earlier albums the other instrumentation tended to be lower in the mix giving space the vocals and piano.

Overall not a bad album, but not Tori Amos at her best. But still distinctive and a cut above other the other ‘kookie’ female singer/songwriters.