THOMAS CHARLIE PEDERSEN: Employees Must Wash Hands (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Nothing stops Thomas Charlie Pedersen. The Danish singer and guitarist had already released his fifth opus "Funhouse Mirror" with his band Vinyl Floor in the fall of 2022. A few months later, he does it again by releasing his third solo album whose title "Employees Must Wash Hands" is enough to illustrate the genesis of his compositions in the middle of a confinement... but with the company of his brother Daniel, also member of Vinyl Floor.

However, don't expect a gloomy album. As with Vinyl Floor, we are invited to a trip back in time in a luxurious pop where the Beatles are never far away. And it starts with the first track 'Yesterdays And Silly Ways' which evokes without any possible mistake the Fab Four in their best moments. Loneliness, an obvious theme, leads to melancholy as on 'Rains On Saturn' with its heavy piano notes, the hammered drums of 'Mass In D Minor' or on 'Organ Prayer (In E Flat)' but the warm voice comes to light the darkness. The vocal interpretation is one of the greatest assets of this record, clear, sometimes sententious but always comforting.

Fifteen tracks for a duration of 36 minutes, we can say that the Danish artist goes to the essential. This brevity does not prevent some tracks from being duplicated or from being anecdotal ('Night Of Stars', 'Sooner Than You Think'). One feels at times a taste of unfinished business, Thomas Charlie Pedersen being sometimes content to stay on the surface and not venturing often enough beyond the 4 minutes. The string ballad 'Stagnant Pools Of Sorrow' sounds like a pocket symphony and would have deserved to stretch more languorously beyond its 2 minutes and 23 seconds as does 'Oh Whatever'. The longest track, 'Fiddler And The Travesty', gives us a glimpse of what this album could have sounded like if its author had wanted to be a little more bold.

If the album is not revolutionary, on the other hand, it fulfills its mission to lead us in the magic world of the pop thanks to the voice of its interpreter and its positive spirit. There is no need to wash your ears before listening to this album. - Official website

THOMAS CHARLIE PEDERSEN

EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS

AUTOPRODUCTION

ROCK