Shack: Here's Tom With The Weather (Coloured Vinyl LP)

The Shack story is one of music’s greatest legends. It incorporates hardship, bereavement and chaotic misadventure, but above all it tells the tale of beautiful music triumphing over trouble and tragedy. Here’s Tom with The Weather boasts a majestic and fresh form. These are magical songs, psychedelic folk songs of the finest Head vintage. Sleepy-eyed, wistful and mystical, yet crafted with a cunning and acute dexterity beyond just about anybody you can think of.

The two profoundly Liverpudlian brothers Mick and John Head have made several brilliant albums together, but none as quickly as Here’s Tom… which was completed in seven weeks at Brynderwen Studios in North Wales along with drummer Iain Templeton (RIP) , bassist Guy Rigby and producer Jay Reynolds in 2003.

In the 80’s, the two brothers from the notorious Kensington estate in north Liverpool were singer and guitarist with The Pale Fountains, an effervescent pop group which imploded under the weight of two albums in 1986. The Heads returned in ‘88 as Shack and a debut album Zilch. In 1991, Shack made Waterpistol, an inspirational guitar jewel that would have proved just as influential as any British album in that era had the studio not burned down, taking the master tapes with it. Four more years passed, but by the time it was finally released on Marina it had developed ‘lost classic’ status.

The Heads battled on. They toured as their hero Arthur Lee (RIP) of Love’s backing band. In ‘97, they created a new group called The Strands and recorded the delicate, dreamy masterpiece The Magical World Of The Strands. They spent a long time making another classic HMS Fable, and then decided that next time they wouldn’t take quite as long recording.

Enter Here’s Tom With The Weather. Showcasing John’s slow, shy emergence as a songwriter to challenge his brother (on the sparkling, heartbreaking ‘Miles Apart’ and ‘Carousel’, and the spun-out ‘Kilburn High Road’) , toasting Mick’s newest confirmation as the most unrecognised genius of his or any other generation (the ode to his bro, ‘Byrds Turn To Stone’, the mariachi horns that break open the slow folk fog of ‘Meant To Be’, the two lullaby bookends ..and on , and on).

“The journey we’ve had together has been beautifully turbulent”, laughs John. “But there’s times when we glide and we’re gliding forward now” Mick agrees. “Making this album has been frantic, chaos, carnage, intense : the normal way with us. But it doesn’t sound like that. That’s all that matters. The story is what it is. But so are the songs and so are the records. Because we’re good”.

Nobody could disagree with that.

Oxblood vinyl version.

1. As Long As I've Got You
2. Soldier Man
3. Byrds Turn To Stone
4. The Girl With Long Brown Hair
5. On The Terrace
6. Miles Apart
7. Meant To Be
8. Carousel
9. On The Streets Tonight
10. Chinatown
11. Kilburn High Road
12. Happy Ever After