Tom Milsom: Explorers 6 Review

I get it....

Album: Explorers 6
Artist: Tom Milsom
Genre: Experimental Indie-pop


7.2/10

    

     From what I can tell from Explorers 6 Tom Milsom’s mind moves a mile a minute.  “Hey what if I used one of those kiddy pianos?  Let’s have me play a simple chord progression on my mandolin a distorted bass tone pulses in the left earbud only.  You know what would make this song sound good?  Stream of consciousness all over this bitch”  Tom Milsom sounds like Panda Bear’s understudy, employing some experimental chops similar to Animal Collective and synth skills similar to Geographer.

     Explorers 6 is a short album, I would classify it as an EP.  At only 6 songs, Explorers doesn’t have a long time to establish its ideas and impress.  “Smell” opens up like a clearer track on Merriweather Post Pavilion with a frantic group harmony and noddly wall-of-sound synthesizers and noises.  It’s rooted in pop however, as Milsom’s British serenade employs simple melodies juxtaposed against the frantic nature of the instruments.  At a certain point a bass tone that follows it’s own tempo plays along with the song, just adding to the confusion.  Milsom’s vocals jump from airy to clear at multiple spots within the song.  “Cherub” is calmer, but we hear some clearly electronic drums filling the beat, and it’s too bad that Milsom couldn’t take some time to alter the tone of the drum machine, because in all honesty the snare drum sounds dead, at least until the song picks up halfway through, and live drums take its place.  “Live in Spite” inches towards acoustic synthpop.  It’s definitely much less experimental, but it suffers like “Cherub” does with a poor drum tone for a good portion of the tune.  The melody is choppy, in a good way, and the song evokes more emotion than any other song so far.  The 7 minute “Lines” builds off the same synthpop background, with some rawer textures from the flute, percussion, and Glockenspiel.  It’s definitely the “epic” of the EP, and marks a crescendo musically, lyrically, and emotionally.  “Faster” revists that experimental AnCo-like sound, beginning fast paced and with Milsom switching off with himself singing the word ‘faster’.  But the weirdest and biggest leap for Milsom is his spoken-word noise-beat ‘Fiberglass Baby’ that has Milsom play creepy piano lines with deep quiet electronic bass tones and marching snare drums.  The spoken-word aspect is fresh, but not especially interesting, as the lyrics are delivered like a stream of consciousness with little rise or ebb of emotion in its delivery.  Also I found his closeness to the mic to be an affront to the listener, perhaps intentionally, but nonetheless it was a turn-off.

    Lyrically there’s some cool stuff going on here.  “Smell” talks about memories linked to senses. Even if one can’t remember something specifically, a smell can evoke emotion and memory of anything and everything.  “Cherub” has the innocence of cherubs offending the weak and evil nature of man.  “Lines” has a recurring line that introduces each verse, but changes it slightly.  “Did a line off your chest and it made me feel better.”  “There’s a lion in your chest and it makes you feel better.” “Now I’m lying on your chest and it makes me feel better.”  It’s a song about two lovers working their relationship out and attempting to better themselves in the process.

     Overall Tom Milsom delivers some cool ideas, but the term ‘experimental’ may not be entirely accurate to do the strong pop influence and similar sounds to other bands.  It’s a group of solid songs for the most part, and was enjoyable to listen to besides the closing track.  I’ll give it 7.2 Explorers out of 10.  Hey, it’s more than 6.

FAVE TRACKS: Smell, Lines