Biography
For years New England-based Tom Thumb split time between carefully arranged home recordings of pop songs and spare, melodic solo acoustic performances. With the addition of a full band, Tom Thumb has effected the change from delicate, bedroom folk to densely layered pop. For the past year they have honed their sound playing in clubs around Boston and Providence with the likes of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The expansive sound of Tom Thumb and the Latter Day Saints is built around the tight interweave of guitar, electric piano and vocal harmonies underscored by subtly complex song structures and rhythms.
The band holed up in a church in Maine for a weekend in the dead of winter and recorded Kindermusik live to eight tracks. As a result, these songs sound natural and unlabored, balancing the energy and urgency of live performance with the clarity of studio work. Deftly engineered by Dave Coleman to capture the open, roomy sound of the church, it also retains the warmth and detail of the songs.
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Tom Thumb’s sound has been compared to that of bands like Spoon, Wilco, My Morning Jacket, M. Ward and even Yo La Tengo. But what Tom Thumb and the Latter Day Saints share most of all with these bands is not a direct genre lineage, but rather an ability to tap into a song form that is at once familiar and fresh. By incorporating a variety of influences and not adhering to genres or aping trends, Tom Thumb creates music that exists in the space between styles.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.