The debut album from Alex Bloom, Blue Room, is the revelation of a prodigious talent. It is also one of the most tuneful releases of this season, and the sort of thing that deserves a lot of attention from attentive listeners, and bloggers who are willing to spread the word a bit.
From the gentle folk of "One For Me" and "Sunrise" and on to the Elliott Smith-inspired "I Don't Know You Anymore", Alex Bloom reveals his enormous skills as a songwriter here on Blue Room right away. The tunes are concise, melodic, and brimming with the kind of warmth little other modern indie possesses anymore. "It's Alright" hints at something uneasy, the tune going briefly wrong, and things are not quite as smooth as they are elsewhere on the record. The cut is a suggestion of something deeper than simply the usual balladry one could expect of a talent like Bloom's. And on "Something" and a few other tracks here, like the spry "Eyes In The Back Of Her Head", Bloom displays a knack for complicating (however slightly) what could have been more straightforward songs. The artistry here is rich, and Bloom is to be commended for his command of this material, and the ease with which he dispatches some truly Beatleseque hooks throughout the otherwise largely direct indie-pop of his wildly accessible debut.
Blue Room is out on Friday. Follow Alex Bloom via his official Facebook page, or his official website.