If Tom Moriaty ever felt any trepidation regarding the more electric guitar-driven path he is pursuing on his latest album Chapters, just one spin of opener, “The Enemy Inside,” proves that there was never anything to worry about. It’s a perfect and poised blend of the more Americana-soaked acoustic sound of some of his earlier music and a heady injection of kick-ass, foot on the monitor roots rock roar, not to mention an instant classic.
Also at the heavier end of this newly expanded sonic spectrum, we find songs such as “Hard Times,” which broods and grooves in equal measure, and the slow, intense torch song “Leave It All Behind.”
But it is not as if he has abandoned the defter, more folky-finessed sound that he made his name on. “She’s Like The River” is built on gorgeous spaciousness and the tenderest of sentiments, and “You Are My Island” sits between old and new, building through folk lowlands and ending up in Pink Floyd -vibed rock-gospel harmony highs.
“It was time to add an electric guitar into the mix. I felt it was time to use the skills I’d learned at MI in LA to express myself and emotion in my music. Times had changed, and in some of the songs, I wanted to express more anger and aggression as a reflection of how the world had changed.” Moriarty explains. Well, that is certainly the case here. The delicacy of earlier albums,The Road and Fire in the Doll’s House is still evident, but there is now an urgency and drive to many of the songs that we haven’t heard in his work before.
Not only a new chapter for Moriarty, but it is also music that is better equipped to explore and describe the more volatile times we live in.
