Here Comes The Flood: Richard Lomax & The Tontine: Down There For Dancing

BEST OF 2015
17
HCTF

Mancunian multi-instrumentalist Richard Lomax is a bit of an eccentric. His musical weapon of choice is the Omnichord, an electronic string emulating gizmo manufactured by Suzuki in the early Eighties. Its timbre is a perfect vehicle for his quintessentially English pop tunes in the tradition of Ray Davies, Lloyd Cole and Jarvis Cocker.

Formerly the leader of Johnny5thWheel&thecowards he assembled another band of merry men dubbed The Tontine to back him up on his latest album Down There For Dancing. A collection of energetic melancholy and vice versa. Lomax always keeps a firm grip on his material, whether is the slide guitar driven rocker Set Me Free of surf-enhanced vaudeville put-down song Wag the Wonderbitch.

Even when Lomax gets mad at someone, like he does in Every Fucker Fucks You (so why not fuck them first?), he picks up a scalpel instead of an axe, wrapping his wrath in an aloof manner plus a some memorable guitar outbursts - efficiency superseding blind fury. Down There For Dancing is an album for those who have going through a rough patch or are just game for a dozen of fine examples of superior songwriting. Incidentally; there is no hint of Hotel California in Hotel X, but there are plenty in the album's closer Wellness. Which makes perfect sense.

Richard Lomax & The Tontine:
Richard Lomax: vocals, guitar, Omnichord, organ
Si Borkin: electric bass
Cleg: guitar
Oli Hughes: drums
Kev Morel: percussion, backing vocals
Phill Howley: percussion
Joel Roberts: upright bass on Wellness
Clement Neveu: electric bass on Glamour