TOM GRENNAN - Lighting Matches (Album Review)

There’s always a danger when a band or artist releases a string of singles before their first album that they may have “played their hand too early”, so to speak. A danger that their best work has already been heard to entice you into buying an album that is then filled with sub standard tracks. So it was with a little bit of trepidation that I spun Bedford boy Tom Grennan’s debut record Lighting Matches, having already heard 50% of the dozen songs on it. I needn’t have worried.

Opener Found What I’ve Been Looking For is one of those that has been out for a while but is a track that you can’t help but love. It’s anthemic, singalong qualities were soon picked up by Sky Sports for their Premier League football coverage and you can’t help feel that when the single was released last year was about the time Grennan really started to take off.

Royal Highness and the insanely catchy horn driven melodies of Barbed Wire (our full review of that single is here) continue the record in similar vein before the previously unheard on record Run in the Rain shows a more sensitive side to Grennan and one that will win him over just as many fans as some of his more upbeat singles. Grennan is on record as saying Aboard is his personal favourite song off the album and it’s certainly his best vocal performance, his voice bristling with a classic soulful confidence as he delivers a love song in his own likeable, everyman style, “if it’s cool then it’s cool, won’t fuck around no more”.

Title track Lighting Matches closes side A of the album in brilliant fashion, as Grennan belts out a rousing chorus over a simply beautiful string section and side B begins with the wonderful piano ballad Lucky Ones as the album drifts into more melancholy territory before kicking back in with the superbly upbeat single Sober. But it’s closing track Little By Little Love that stands out on this album for me. As Grennan chants “I saw my devil closing in, never thought I’d do such bad things” you realise he’s one of us. A working class lad who grew up wanting to be a footballer with the same misspent youth, same weaknesses and same vulnerabilities as the rest of us, and that’s what make this album all the more special. A lad from Bedford with an immense talent and an unbelievable work ethic is on his way to the top and that’s something we should all get behind.

The album is out now, and if you haven’t already bought it, do it now and let’s get it to the top of the charts. Tom Grennan is lighting matches, and is about to burn the whole gaff down.

Words by Danny Buckley.

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