Not Entirely Pointless, but of Limited Appeal Nonetheless.
Live releases inevitably have very limited appeal due to their poor sound quality and relatively unplanned nature. Very rarely would someone new to a band or artist choose to buy a live release in order to hear more of the artist's work, and thus live versions of tracks, or songs only available as live versions, are only usually owned (even on mp3) by hardcore fans of the band or artist. The tracks on this release were recorded, unsurprisingly, live at the Amadeus in London in September 2006. It is only available as a digital release, although artwork to accompany it was handed out to fans at the concerts in September so that they can "make their own" EPs. Suffolk-born Tom Baxter appeared on the music scene in 2004 with the release of his debut (and as yet only) album 'Feather And Stone', in which he managed to garner critical praise and comparisons to Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake (but then who else are male singer-songwriters who are openly in touch with their emotions ever compared to?).
Helpfully enough, the only place on which the song titles are written with the preview copy is on the CD, so this review will not refer to individual song titles. The five tracks on this release are all fairly similar affairs – lots of lengthy intros, sneaky pianos, whining strings and undirected understatement, all accompanied by a plethora of shouts and applause. Tom's voice itself is pleasant, but hardly earth-shattering and not particularly strong. He tries hard to inject feeling into his voice and lyrics, but this unfortunately makes him seem rather sappy at times, particularly in the second track, and prompts the listener to want to shout "Pull yourself together!" (something the audience manage to restrain themselves from, but that could be because they're already asleep).
The third track is the most obvious ballad, perhaps even love song, although its hard to be certain as Mr. Baxter's pronunciation isn't the clearest. Again, it's difficult not to want to reach out and shake him, but if whiny vocal and piano pieces are your thing, then you may well be in raptures. If you love low-beat singer-songwriter material you won't be disappointed (although may well rather spend your hard-earned cash on a studio album without annoying crowd sounds instead), but if you like your music to be more energetic, or just a little less innocuous, you'd be better off looking elsewhere for musical entertainment.