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In the Post #154: The Payroll Union guitarist Tom Baxendale introduces new solo album with lead track ‘All My Nightmares’

If you’re a regular TGTF reader, you might recall that we featured Sheffield-based alt-rock band The Payroll Union last summer, when they released their captivating second album ‘Paris of America’. With that project now complete, The Payroll Union’s Pete David recently contacted TGTF about a new project being undertaken by the band’s independent record label Backwater Collective. Having already released three albums, two for The Payroll Union itself, the label is now preparing to release its fourth LP, in the form of a new solo record from Payroll Union guitarist Tom Baxendale titled ‘In the City a Short Time Ago’.

Talking of his own solo work, Baxendale describes himself as “a prolific songwriter who takes elements of country, folk, new wave, rockabilly, pop . . . you name it, to create a distinctive sound of his own.” Certainly, his work with the Payroll Union would have provided a unique experience, both in terms of musical arrangement and songwriting, but Baxendale has taken a more mainstream tack for his album’s first single ‘All My Nightmares’. The song’s story line deals with a broken romance from the point of view of a protagonist who just can’t quite tear himself away. Musically, it has a rather surprising and unapologetically catchy, lo-fi, retro Seventies’ sort of sound.

According to the press release for ‘In the City a Short Time Ago’, the new album is “packed with narrative tales that reveal an unsettling unconscious desire, with murderous pacts, love trysts, familial conflict, and, at the heart of it, a deepening sense of loss in love.” We can’t speak to all that just yet, but we can definitely hear the seeds of it in ‘All My Nightmares’. We’ll look forward to the full album release in September to find out whether or not Baxendale harvests his new song’s full potential.

7.5/10

Tom Baxendale’s new solo album ‘In the City a Short Time Ago’ is due out in September via Backwater Collective.

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