Don’t you just hate it when you team up with a like-minded artist to write a couple of songs and get on so well that you write an entire album together? Well, that is what happened when Tom Tikka and his wheel trim challenged musical vehicle joined forces with Nolen Chew Jr. of The Star Prairie Project. Instead of coming away from the project with a song for each artist’s next album, a complete long player was the result. Damn it!
And if the first single from that collaboration, “California Smile,” was commercially and critically well-received, the new one, “Sweet Surrender,” looks sure to follow in the same footsteps, only with even more pop and pep, funk, and groove to guide it on its way.
Sitting on the cusp of pop, rock, and Americana, it balances the right amount of accessibility and infectiousness with groovesome drive and just a dash of rootsy, heartland rock traditions to appeal far and wide across the musical landscape. As both songwriters have ably proven over the years, they can walk a fine line between the mature and discerning and the instantly appealing, the deftly wrought, and the instantly desirable. And “Sweet Surrender” does all this without looking like it even broke a sweat.
It is a perfect meeting of minds, a brilliant blending of styles.
Oh, and the cover? That’s just Tom being eaten by a giant in Poland; nothing to worry about there.
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