Review: Tom Wardle flourishes with wondrously reflective new EP, ‘Jacqueline’
The folk-rock musician reaches new heights of his craft on his latest EP.
Hollywood Hills rose as emeralds spilling out of a treasure trove of tangy, sun-kissed grandeur. Easing out of sweet slumber, his dreams fading swiftly, Tom Wardle took a deep breath and swallowed every shimmering puzzle piece. Los Angeles flowed out of the sweeping greenery as a well-spring unable to be contained by crusted mountain peaks. “Jacqueline,” a savory morsel inspired by such a view, envelopes Wardle in a fleece blanket of warmth, truth and the simple state of his new reality. Itching for freedom, creatively and personally, the British guitar-slinger relocated to the states back in 2017, sparking a reinvention, of sorts. His new EP sheds his past and emerges as his most rootsy body of work, and his reedy tenor is even more imposing as he aches through growing pains of a working musician’s life, heartache and endurance.
“I know you’re waiting on my words / Hope they never push you away,” he soothes with the raucous romper “Don’t Give Up on Me Just Yet.” His influences are clearly marked, traces of Beach Boys and Rod Stewart potently flutter in his vocal phrasing, while guitar work slides from funk and soul to traditional country music. Each facet to his craft is brought to life through working in the studio with members of Brian Wilson’s band, an artistic avenue that unlocked not only Wardle’s potential but gave the songs ample room to breathe. “I Could Have Been a Millionaire” initially buckles underneath a former lover’s potent venom, her fangs having sunk into and broken his skin, but he soon rediscovers the truth that was in plain sight all along. “So many things I’ve been afraid to say / And I’ve kept quiet to this very day / Oh, to tell her now would not be fair,” he sings, gazing backward and finally fully reflecting upon his once-shattered, shapeless heart.
He burns through life’s pages briskly but never at the expense of soaking in vital lessons. “She barks, and she bites,” he flicks on the reggae-styled “I Know What She Needs.” Engaged in an unexpected game of cat ‘n mouse, Wardle, whose vocal ticks even inhabit the soulfully-spun musicality, knows the ins and outs of such a lover’s game and its consequences. “She’s not to blame, though,” he concedes in his analytics of the relationship, swapping out such acidic words for deeply-rooted pain and trauma. He detaches himself just enough to observe from the outside before diving, once invigorated, back into the pool, completely and fearlessly. “I know she breaks my heart with every word she’s saying,” he sings.
Start to finish, Wardle’s Jacqueline EP ⏤ reaching stylistic apex with the truly hypnotic soul-crusher “Pink Lillies,” a western weeper in which he yearns to glue a relationship back together ⏤ is a musical triumph. He has already proven his heft and charm in both singing and songwriting throughout his burgeoning catalog, but his latest five-song batch concentrates his strengths to remarkable effect. In two years, since the release of 2017’s One Last Kiss, Wardle is altogether flourishing as one of folk-rock music’s finest assets.
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