Tom Minor’s second album feels like a sharper, more confident continuation of what he started on Eleven Easy Pieces on Anger & Disappointment. The voice is the same, but the focus is tighter. The writing cuts deeper, the humour is darker, and the production gives the songs more bite without sanding off their rough edges. This is “existential indie” that still knows how to swing. Despite the title, the album runs to twelve tracks, and there’s not much filler here. The songs deal with anxiety, politics, memory, mental health, and social collapse, but they do it with wit and melody rather than gloom. Minor has a knack for wrapping uncomfortable ideas in tunes that stick immediately. You can hum along while quietly questioning everything.
The run opens strong with “Future Is an F Word”, a song that works both as a sour relationship post-mortem and a bleak joke about climate doom and human inertia. It’s catchy, sarcastic, and unsettling in equal measure. “Expanding Universe” keeps that edge, skewering power, greed, and collective apathy with sharp lines and restless energy. The presence of Creatures Of Habit adds extra punch without crowding the song. One of the album’s standouts is “Progressive or Punk”, which feels both nostalgic and bitterly self-aware. It reflects on youth, scenes, ambition, and ageing with clever wordplay and a sense of humour that doesn’t hide the sting underneath. “Bring Back the Good Ol’ Boys” follows as a biting satire, exposing how easily people fall back into old mistakes and false nostalgia. It’s playful on the surface but deeply uneasy if you listen closely. On “Obsessive Compulsive”, Minor leans into repetition and nervous energy. The song feels intentionally claustrophobic, mirroring the mental loops it describes. “Next Stop Brixton” is more narrative-driven, moving through London with memory, regret, and survival woven into the track’s rhythm. The guest guitar work adds colour without stealing focus.
Side two keeps things varied. “Washed-Up Buoy” is deceptively simple and quietly devastating, built around the fear of becoming irrelevant or drifting without purpose. “The Manic Phase” tells its story with empathy and chaos, capturing highs, crashes, and identity slips with vivid detail. “The Loneliest Person on Earth” strips things back emotionally, exposing a relationship collapsing under honesty and frustration. “Outgoing Individual” and “Excessive Impulsive” mirror earlier themes but from different angles, exploring performance, excess, and self-destruction. The album closes with “Change It!”, which feels like a ragged call to action. It’s messy, hopeful, and defiant, ending the record on a note that refuses to give up entirely. Produced by Teaboy Palmer, the album sounds clean but never sterile. Guitars jangle, rhythms snap, and Minor’s vocals sit front and centre, dry and expressive. Everything serves the songs. Ten New Toe-Tappers for Shoplifting & Self-Mutilation is funny, angry, thoughtful, and strangely comforting. It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it understands the questions very well. Tom Minor sounds like an artist fully in control of his voice, even when he’s singing about losing control.
English