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<\/a>Tom noted: \u201cI\u2019ve always been enamored of Keats and his poetry, and studied his work in depth in college (along with chemistry). I started writing songs ten years ago, and have released some short EPs, but had this notion of a Keats concept album, and roughly mapped it out a year ago, with eight songs. Things changed, more ideas came, some ideas died, and here it is. I wanted to release it on the anniversary of Keats death in 1821.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sound is unique. Tom\u2019s music has been described as punk folk – a story-telling, driving beat, in-your-face, attitude sound. He works with a classical violinist, a jazz drummer, a poetry-slamming bass guitarist, and there is tension in the music, with the percussion countering the melodic violin. Tom tells the story and plays punk acoustic. There is some interesting harmony voice work in three of the songs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Death and Monsters<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The songs that leverage the titles of some of Keats most famous poems jump into the underlying myth and story, and then modern life. \u201cEve of St. Agnes,\u201d a dream song, has Keats and St. Agnes as lovers, in Rome, who encounter Caesar, Moses, Elon Musk, Hamlet, Lear. \u201cIsabella and the Pot of Basil,\u201d focuses on the 15th century story, and then takes it to Cambridge, Massachusetts with a porch full of head-hiding urns. \u201cNew Lamia\u201d has the illusion and deception theme of Keats poem, and then a \u201cred wedding\u201d climatic revelation. In \u201cNo Mercy\u201d we have the knight and La Belle, and then we\u2019re transported (with a key change) to old knights on a subway, riding away forever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSlow Time\u201d makes the \u201cOde to a Grecian Urn\u201d an ode to a high school yearbook, with the singer looking at a photo of a woman he\u2019d rejected. \u201cTender Night\u201d is a riff on \u201cOde to a Nightingale, and \u201cSweet Unrest\u201d plays off of \u201cBright Star.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no evidence that Keats had a thing for Mary Shelley, but that song imagines it so. He sees himself as Frankenstein, and Mary becomes a monster, too. \u201cLove Begone\u201d: did Keats have a hard time leaving a married woman he was enamored with? Possibly. This is a ska-like song. Mona Lisa makes a debut. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Time, death, regret, despair – you can hear this in the first and last book-ending songs, in the first Keats is singing to Fanny Brawne, and in the last song, Keats is singing to all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n