Surrounded by Time is
Tom Jones' 42nd album, his first since the passing of wife Linda in 2016. Since 1965, the Welsh vocalist, possessed of a singular booming baritone, has sung almost every form of popular music of all stripes. This is
Jones' fourth album with producer
Ethan Johns, and includes his manager/son
Mark Woodward as co-producer.
Surrounded by Time differs from
Jones' previous outings with
Johns, which were rooted in Americana sources. The set opens with a sparsely orchestrated reinvention of
Bernice Johnson Reagon's activist classic "I Won't Crumble with You If You Fall."
Jones performs the lyric like a gospel preacher atop
Neil Cowley's and
Johns' layered Moogs,
Nick Pini's arco bass, and
Dan See's mallets. He follows with a glorious version of
Michel Legrand's "The Windmills of Your Mind." His delivery is at once dramatic and resonant, balancing reverie, desire, and pathos, while draped in post-electro sequencers, organ, Moog, and brooding rhythms.
Jones chose
Cat Stevens' "Pop Star" because it reminded him of his first brush with fame.
Johns paints the jagged arrangement with Chamberlins, Mellotrons, DFAM, sitar, and acoustic guitars, providing urgency alongside the singer's joy.
Jones offers
Malvina Reynolds' topical folk gem "No Hole in My Head" as organ-drenched psychedelic rock, complete with droning tambouras and electric guitars. His take of
Michael Kiwanuka's "I Won't Lie" is colored by airy synths, acoustic guitars, bird calls, and satellite sounds.
Jones' delivery is uncharacteristically tender, intimate, even vulnerable. The singer renders
Mike Scott's "This Is the Sea" with the passionate authority of a blues singer. Acoustic guitars and organ simmer and soar alongside his roaring vocal as the rhythm section (barely) tethers them to earth. The singer reads
Bob Dylan's foreboding "One More Cup of Coffee" through the mistakes of his youth. Amid the slurry instrumental swirl, a plodding upright bass exhorts
Jones to face his darkness. He surrenders, offering the line "One more cup of coffee before I go/To the valley below" with chilling intensity. Organs, synth pads, Moogs, and guitars paint a spaghetti western backdrop as
Jones goes deep on
Tony Joe White's "Ol' Mother Earth." He delivers it as a solemn elegy for the planet. Composer
Bobby Cole presented
Jones with "I'm Growing Old" when the singer was 35; feeling he was too young to sing it then, he promised to cut it when he turned 80. Ambient sonics and disembodied voices float by, then vanish as
Jones begins a desolate croon, accompanied only by
Cowley's haunted piano.
Jones chose
Terry Callier's "Lazarus Man" as a set closer. After a spacey electronic intro, silvery guitars, droning bass, Rhodes piano, and thundering drums offer a sonic maelstrom in blues, spiritual soul, and rock.
Jones embraces it all, passionately affirming the lyric as a manifesto for whatever time remains to him.
Surrounded by Time is magnificent -- it's redolent with wisdom and a raging lust for life that is free of camp. It offers abundant proof that despite the passing of years,
Jones has lost none his power or swagger. ~ Thom Jurek
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