“I’ve been fighting with my Ghosts, telling me I should know better, but i don’t” sings Liam Cromby on “Breakdown”.
Not only is that the first song on “What Can I Trust, If I Can’t Trust True Love”, it’s the first line on Cromby’s debut solo album and thus his statement of intent.
Maybe he’s shaking off his past in front of us? He was, until 2017, the singer in We Are The Ocean, and this sees him off down a singer/songwriter dirt road, one that he’s always fancied, apparently.
Certainly, although I remember (and liked) the rock of WATO, the Gin Blossoms tinges of the opener, the organ drenched title track (a co-write with Steve Battelle of LostAlone, who also writes most of McFly’s hits.) Are a world away from his history.
The story goes that he went to Nashville for work in 2019 and immersed himself in the culture there. Not that this is strictly country. Rather, “At This Table” and the likes are regret-filled Americana, and “The Same” has that late 90s vibe that all great Americana has. Bands like Whiskeytown, Uncut Magazine, ahhh the good old days. It all comes bursting forward in the organ and the guitar solo, and this one is a beauty.
You can imagine Cromby with a battered guitar case, writing “Trying” at 3am in some motel with hourly rates. Wonderfully evocative, it sounds both weatherworn and hopeful all at once.
Just after halfway – I’d wager it’d start side two in old money – comes “Always The One” and it hit me, the comparison I’d been reaching for: Jesse Malin, this could have been on his debut, it’d have been good there too, by the way.
Roughly split between rockers and ballads, there’s a poetry about “Love Takes Time” – which gets Lap Steel bonus points – and he sounds especially fragile on the slow builder “Here I Am” which eventually explodes into something truly soul, the backing vocals ensure that.
“Lucky Man” is as different again. Piano and voice together as one, and you imagine it’s from the heart (as opposed to a labour of love, which the record as a whole definitely is).
And he does it exceptionally well. “Fire” is a chugging rocker to finish and it’s hook “when was the last time you took a bet on what your heart could take?” Maybe underlines the point, that this is an artist doing something because he needs to. That’s different to wanting to. This really matters.
“What Can I Trust, If I Can’t Trust True Love?” Maybe the answer for Liam Cromby is easy: yourself?
Rating 9/10
