With its piercing lines, vivid imagery and absorbing vision, Tobias Cummings’ sophomore album, A Trophy, is the kind of album that leaves a haunting afterthought
With its piercing lines, vivid imagery and absorbing vision, Tobias Cummings’ sophomore album, A Trophy, is the kind of album that leaves a haunting afterthought. Its introductory line illustrates the album’s eerie and slightly mordant mood: “I saw you by the fountain / A glass of champagne in one hand / A high-heeled shoe in the other / You’d fallen in the fish pond not long before”. It’s evident that the Melbourne singer-songwriter has developed his distinctive sound – moody atmospheric-folk laced in sardonic pop intonations and a stirring pensiveness – profoundly since the release of his Australian Music Prize-nominated debut album, Join The Dots (2006).
As epitomised by its album title (a light-hearted play on the morbid term of atrophy), Cummings ensures that life’s prevailing sentiments of defeatism and tragedy are embraced as a self-fulfilling drive to conquer mental unrest. What results is a thoughtful balancing of varying moods, whether heightened emotions or stifling introspection. This allows for the inspired juxtaposition between the eeriness of Goldmine and the sprightly jangle-pop of Exegesis. Even in the deeply self-depreciatory Busy Bees – in which Cummings mourns “if you love me, that will be your tragedy” – the song’s dense layers of ethereal harmonies, glistening keys and surging guitars are a soaring accompaniment. The Judge takes its deserving place as the album centre-piece. Its throat-swallowing intimacy, raw intensity, and morose introspection prove startling as Cummings cries: “He never sleeps; he says he’ll never die”.
In You’ve Always Had That Insight, creaking floorboards and falling boots can be heard as the sparse keys-laden composition guides the listener into Cummings’ personal sanctum… a radio is playing nearby, a fire possibly burning in the background as he cries into the night with his heavy heart leaning into the piano. “Take the salt and rub it in my wounds / Ot won’t take long and you know I love the pain,” broods Cummings on Any Other Day… it’s quite apparent by this stage that the singer-songwriter is drawn to penetrating melancholia, however, by song’s end it’s the reassurance that “I’m not afraid” that reverberates. Fittingly, A Trophy is bookended by the album’s most moving and life-affirming composition, A Golden Dream.
A Trophy is an album that holds the virtues of grace and humility closely and valiantly, suggesting that success and triumph is perhaps only in our minds. Cummings’ voice and piano arrangements are more affecting than ever, but more impressive is the dignified and astute manner in which the songs all lead to that greater vision. A Trophy is a beautifully-crafted and compelling record – one that deserves to be absorbed in its entirety in a quiet and reflective space.
