One True Pairing

★★★ One True Pairing DOMINO. CD/DL/LP Former Wild Beasts man Tom Fleming makes solo debut. “There’s nothing less interesting than a bald guy with a hat on and an acoustic guitar,” avers Tom Fleming. Unsurprising, then, that One

True Pairing is an experimental and deeply idiosyncratic record. Arriving just months after the rated solo debut of his erstwhile Wild Beasts bandmate Hayden Thorpe, it funnels stated AOR influences through a conduit paved with stark programmed drums, spare, sometimes sicklysounding arrangements, and warping, Depeche Mode-like synths. So, claustrophobic yet propulsive songs such as Reaper Of Souls and Zero Summer come on like The Boys Of Summer might have done had Don Henley co-written with Martin Gore. Emotive though it is, Fleming’s haunted Vegas Elvis baritone remains a somewhat acquired taste, but there’s no mistaking the intensity of his vision as he explores toxic masculinity on King Of The Rats and Weapons. James McNair