At last! Louis finds his true direction
Boy band pin-up swaps pop for indie rock in raucous solo debut
WHeN he was singing with One Direction, Louis Tomlinson was the unassuming boy-next-door.
At home in jeans and trainers, the Yorkshire-born star wasn’t averse to strapping on a pair of football boots and turning out for Doncaster Rovers reserves — as he did briefly in 2014 — and always seemed the most grounded individual in a band of ambitious high-flyers.
His modest nature didn’t prevent him from pulling his weight creatively, though. With writing credits on no fewer than 37 One Direction songs, he made a significant contribution as the boy band moved away from tuneful, generic pop towards more mature rock on albums Midnight Memories, Four and Made In The AM.
So it’s a surprise that he’s been the slowest out of the blocks with his own career. Since One Direction took an openended break in 2016, he has busied himself as a judge alongside Simon Cowell, Robbie Williams and Ayda Field on The X Factor, the show that gave birth to One Direction in 2010, but released only a clutch of unremarkable singles.
He’s now making up for lost time with a solo debut as unpretentious and straightforward as the man himself. Four years in the making, Walls was put together with collaborators including Jamie Hartman, co-writer of Rag’n’Bone Man’s Human, and Wayne Hector, a regular One Direction sideman.
As such, it shuns the California dreaming of ex-bandmates Harry Styles and Zayn Malik in favour of meat-and-potatoes guitar rock that wears its heart on its sleeve. Tomlinson, 28, grew up listening to Oasis and the Arctic Monkeys — and it shows.
His intentions are clear from the off. Opening track Kill My Mind is a raucous number about youthful indiscretions that is pitched between his X Factor pal Robbie and Liam Gallagher.
THERE’S more of the same on Don’t Let It Break Your Heart, a careworn ballad about keeping calm and carrying on in adversity; while the chorus of the title track bears such a strong resemblance to the 1995 Oasis song Acquiesce that Noel Gallagher is given a writing credit.
If Walls sometimes leans towards pastiche, there are poignant moments. Louis adopts a raspy tone on Two Of Us, a ballad about the loss of his mother Johannah, who died from leukaemia in 2016. ‘The day that they took you, I wished it was me instead,’ he sings. Too Young and Perfect Now are lilting and acoustic.
There’s a brief sidestep into electronica on We Made It, where shuffling synths underpin another song about lost youth. But Louis generally stays faithful to the indie rock that shaped his formative years before boy- band fame intervened. ‘ I’ve made an album that has its own identity,’ he says. Walls is too derivative for that, but it’s a heartfelt solo bow nonetheless.
ON THE evidence of her fourth album, High Road, a night out with U. S. singer Kesha Sebert (left) isn’t for the fainthearted. Whether she’s donning ‘ her leathers’, smuggling wine into a backpack or ending up ‘as hungover as hell’, she certainly walks on the wild side. She wastes little time in delivering her mission statement: ‘I don’t wanna go to Heaven without raising hell.’ It’s all a far cry from 2017’s Rainbow, a collection of raw, soul-baring ballads overshadowed by a stillongoing legal battle with her former producer Dr Luke.
Kesha sued the producer, alleging sexual and emotional abuse — claims dismissed by a New York judge. Dr Luke countersued alleging defamation and breach of contract. Rainbow, at least, put her career back on track.
In returning to raucous pop and rap, though, High Road has more in common with her two earlier albums, Animal and Warrior, both made when she was still styling herself as ‘Ke$ha’.
It is also scattergun, occasionally X-rated in its language and, on the risque Birthday Suit and the oom-pah number Potato Song ( Cuz I Want To), far too throwaway.
Once its high-octane opening subsides, a decent country-pop record emerges.
Kesha, 32 — born in California and raised in Tennessee — calls on Beach Boy Brian Wilson and Nashville singer Sturgill Simpson for vocal harmonies on the acoustic lament Resentment.
But with her softer moments sounding incongruous alongside her party pop, High Road offers a mad dash rather than a smooth ride.
Both albums are out today. Louis tomlinson starts a tour on March 23 at the Roundhouse, London (gigsandtours.com).