Never Enough Notes e-zine // reviews + interviews + music

Previewing second solo album, The Maximalist, Thomas White returns with his familiar style of pop-with-a-snarl. There’s a fine art to making music that’s subtly aggressive, and the White brothers have always managed to carry it off quite well, the early charm of Electric Soft Parade and more recently as members of Brakes being particularly good examples.

The Last Blast, “a dissection of the life and work of notorious World War II novelist Sven Hassel” (an interesting story by the way), is as suitably manic as its title and topic might suggest. Quite similar in delivery to Happiness in Magazines period Graham Coxon, the songs structure and melody are chaotic, but also equally well performed, managing to sound exhilarating enough to keep its own identity.

Along with a couple of interesting covers as B-sides (and not just The Last Blast techno-club-mega-dance-space remix, or whatever the kids call them), this release suggests that Thomas White may be becoming a genuine hidden gem.

7/10

By Spencer Betts