A well-crafted and engaging exploration of love, life, and loss.
Aaron Thomas is an Australian singer-songwriter who is a new name to this reviewer but has been around for some time, this being his fourth album. He’s also been around geographically, with previous albums being made in Spain and Iceland. ‘Human Patterns’ has had a gestation period of 11 years. It’s a self-produced effort with 12 original compositions featuring Thomas on acoustic and electric guitars, piano, harmonium, and percussion. Several other musicians contribute on trumpet, cello, saxophone, violin, bass, and drums. Backing vocals are only credited on one track but Thomas uses double vocals very effectively on others.
The opener ‘Walk on Water’ is immediately engaging. A pretty but sensual love song, it has a delightful arrangement with support from violin and electric guitar. There is a strong resemblance to the work of the Wood Brothers in both Thomas’s vocal and the instrumentation which is maintained through most of the album. Much of the album also addresses the theme of expressing love and desire. Although there is some repetition of ideas, the sometimes visceral lyrics mainly work well with the mostly restrained arrangements e.g. “Cause every morning I wake up just aching for the smell of your skin”. It’s to Thomas’s credit that none of this becomes mawkish. He also alludes to self-doubt and shortfalls on a couple of tracks: e.g. “I know I can be impossible sometimes”.
It’s not all about plain sailing with relationships though, and other songs explore darker themes of loss, betrayal and family estrangement. ‘Money’, the album’s second track has a much bitterer theme and a busier arrangement, “You owe me much more than money”, but works equally well. ‘Mouth of the City’ is another strong track with dominant electric guitar and moody vocals in which Thomas expresses some foreboding about urban life and the effect it can have on the individual. ‘Spiritual Man’ again has a dark moody feel and alludes to the problems he had moving in with his stepfather. “Oh, mama what have you done? You led us here to this preacher’s home, with his hands still trembling and his guns still warm.” ‘My Brother My Hill’ is about the gradual distancing between Thomas and his twin brother as they become adults.
There is something of a change of approach in the last quarter of the album. Thomas’s lyrics become a bit more obtuse and the production begins to intrude a little at the same time. We’re back in the territory of exploring relationships with the last three songs and all of them start quite simply but progress to more complex arrangements with something of a crescendo effect in each. While this all still works reasonably well there is a sense of the album tailing off slightly with most of the strongest material in the first half.
Overall this is a strong effort and leaves one hoping the next one doesn’t take as long.
