Album Review: Tom West - A Spark In The Dark

Tom West

A Spark In The Dark is an acoustic album full of light instrumentation and gently infectious hooks and melodies. The Adelaide singer-songwriter Tom West adds a whole host of instrumental voices to his standard acoustic guitar and slow, measured vocals, and it makes this record worth remembering. With Sigur Ros flair, he brings in a cacophony of horns, piano and tinkling glockenspiel to finish off the dreamy observations on album highlight An Insignificant Person.

The backdrop of the album is an Australian bush soundscape of cicadas, rain and birdcalls, which evokes an enjoyable locality that comes full-circle during the almost 11-minute closing track Weird Ballet. The meditative soundscape even moves seamlessly to the foreground for about four minutes. West makes good use of melancholy harmonies, and though dotted with the eternally cheerful ukulele most tracks are tinged with sadness and this constant atmosphere means there's a bit of unwarranted repetition. West could have lopped a few tracks off and still be left with a substantial collection of songs.

Lyrically, West hovers somewhere between perfection and absurdity. The first line of One Hundred Cannons' Song, after an intricate guitar intro runs, “I was born in a thunderstorm a thousand years before” while I Drank All The Rum contains the reflection, “Think I mixed it with juice/It didn't taste very good/Which is rather a pity/It was Cuban”.

A Spark In The Dark provides more than what meets the eye. Give it the deserved twice over because the stories are rich and the composition is considered and full.