EP Review: Tom Emlyn – Scaredycat Vol. 1 B-Sides

Tom Emlyn shares three new B-sides from the recently released new album ‘Return Journey Revisited: Scaredycat, Vol. 1’.

A prolific songwriter who released two albums worth of material in 2022 and has already put out an EP earlier this year, the 3 new bonus B-Sides offer another taste of this singer songwriters uncanny ability to write heaps of authentic, heartfelt material.

The previous album packed some absolute delights. The strummed acoustics, walking bass and shuffling drums and phsychedelic guitar lines of ‘It Doesn’t Bother Me’, to the vibrant guitar riffs and Jeff Buckley-esque vocal delivery of ‘Serenade’. Now back with stripped back versions of tracks from the release as well as a discarded interlude, the solo artist further shows the depth of his songwriting.

Opening with a delicate solo version of ‘Broken Mirror’, the stripped acoustic/ vocal arrangement puts a focus on the poetic nature of the lyricism and emotive nature of Emlyn’s delivery, allowing the guitar and vocals to build and grow around each other to create peaks and troughs within the recording. Reminiscent once more of Jeff Buckley but also of capturing an essence of Bob Dylan and Roy Harper.

Elsewhere on this three track release of the stripped back version of the prior mentioned ‘It Doesn’t Bother Me’ displays Emlyn’s shines a light on his ability to create a flourecent sense of energy as a solo performer.

The closing B-Side ‘The Thing Most Feared In Secret’ is definitely the most interesting of the release for me a simplistic soundscape of intertwining melodies placed under a sample of a poetic, thought provoking speech of a man reminiscing upon his live as birds chirp around him. Another example of Tom’s unique approach to making music, unafraid of pushing boundaries and experimenting with varing ideas rather that settling on conventional songwriting.

Speaking on the b-sides, Tom exaplins explains “Abandoned work is a normal part of the music-making process, but I felt these songs deserved a second chance. I also wanted to release it as a (small) protest against certain smoke-and-mirrors aspects of the music industry. People will tell you to wait and wait, hold back all of your material for the “right time”. I can’t do that anymore; for me, a song is only new when it’s just been written, although it can be remade in live performance. I find it quite agonising to sit on this material for so many years. I’ll be thirty in 2023. That’s why I want to get this sizeable backlog of unheard material out there, so I can move on to new things, and that’s why this is the third album I’ve released in a year.”

Three tracks which add more depth to the recent album release, I feel to really appreciate the B-sides, it’s worth also listening to the full album ‘Return Journey Revisited: Scardycat, Vol.1’ to get a full understanding of Emlyn’s complexity and depth as an artist.

The 3 B-sides serve to add to the reflective tenderness which exudes itself throughout this solo artists material, further cementing upon the feverish creative attitude that Tom Emlyn lives by. Listen to both projects below: