Thomas Function – Celebration! (Alive, 2008)
Pressed to make a scurrilous comparison, I’d venture to say that Thomas Function has a vague Bob Dylan influence filtered through the guise of ‘80s small-label-rock, joined with nervous coffee drinking and various other nerdly pursuits. Whether or not that’s fair is debatable, but the indelible mark of Robert Zimmerman is there, even in the less than modern keyboard sound.
Led by vocalist Josh Macero, this group seems adept at churning out well put together pop songs. But with a disc running over forty minutes, a full listen does become trying. And while that is unquestioningly a criticism, the source material gleaned to create Celebration!, from the Fugs to twitchy rock bands and country music, is endearing. These songs will make you walk in time to them, hum the melody and sing choruses at inappropriate times and places.
On an album such as Celebration!, seemingly each track is basically the same. There are obviously nuanced differences, like an emphasis on indie-pop on one track, followed by the hill-folk of “2012 Blues”. Perhaps confusion has set in, without a distinction being made for the group’s style as opposed to monotony.
Obviously though, credit needs to be bestowed upon the band for touring DIY venues and working together as a cohesive pop group. This just makes me wonder what else Alabama has been hiding.
[...] Southerners that make of Thomas Function, though, just completed a pretty brave tour through the East Coast and Midwest during January. And [...]