Tommy Womack
Album: Now What!
Label: Cedar Creek
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.tommywomack.com

After years with under-achieving outfits like Government Cheese and Bis-Quits, guitarist Tommy Womack cut loose a few years back in 2007 released the self-effacing kiss off to the music world, There I Said It! To his great surprise its blend of rolling slacker singer songwritery found favour in the blogosphere certain well-tuned corners of the mainstream media.

The follow up, Now What! finds Tom in happy mood, relieved to have finally achieved a degree of recognition and quite at ease with his new-found notoriety. Making light of his own ADHD is clearly his way of accepting it and living with it (what choice does he have but to make the most of it?) and those that care to will find examples of him doing just that throughout the record. Others will hear a resolutely accessible set of songs that pull on influences as diverse as country & western, folk-blues, rock 'n' roll, Dixie jazz, bluegrass and even (almost hilariously) rap.

His lyrics cast him as a badman, madman, loverman, thief, even a "pimple on Dylan's ass' on Let's Have Another Cigarette, but his fondness for highlighting his own shortcomings looks set to carry him a long way. 90 Miles an Hour Down a Dead End Street, It Doesn't Have To be That Good, On & Off the Wagon, Guilty Snake Blues… the titles speak for themselves, managing to find warmth in human frailty without giving the hint of anyone exploiting the mental illness which has dogged the likes of Daniel Johnston.

Play That Cheap Trick, Cheap Trick Play reveals a love of US arena-era Clash and deftly chucks a co-writing credit out to Rick Nielsen; while on Over the Hill and I'm Too Old To Feel That Way Right Now he embraces middle age with honest abandon. Now What! is the sound of a 50-year-old man telling it like it is and not much caring what anyone thinks. Right on!

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk