Ten
years ago, Scott Thomas was bouncing between LA couches and his
1984 Camaro Z-28, living with the fact that he turned down a scholarship
to NYU for a girl he wasn’t with anymore, and regularly smoking
weed with none other than Timothy Leary. It’s sort of the
typical rocker’s resume, except, of course, the Hollywood
version of it.
Long story short: Thomas got chummy with Balthazar Getty, this up-and-coming
actor—you know his face, trust me—and the pair moved
in together. Life went on. Thomas got jobs as a limo driver, roofer,
baker, even a clothing designer (made the clothes No Doubt accepted
their Grammy in, in fact), and Getty kept at the acting career,
making small strides. Both were also musicians in their own right—Thomas
would wear out acoustic guitar strings downstairs, while Getty churned
out beats on an E-mu SP-1200 upstairs—though neither really
dug the other’s musical tastes. Eventually, though, something
clicked and, just as Thomas was about to hit the road, to chase
fame on the small-venue touring circuit, the two finally decided
to collaborate on an album. The result is an always-unpredictable
musical record of love, loneliness, and Los Angeles.
From the first track, bass-heavy, amphetamine-tempoed beats suffused
with atmospheric digitalia get your head bouncing, but it’s
not until “Spanishfaster” that you begin to realize
just how good Ringside might actually be. As Thomas juxtaposes a
collapsing love affair against the soulless Hollywood landscape,
the song becomes a wild, yet controlled mix of styles, slipping
back and forth between Spanish guitar, acoustic and electronic guitar,
and piano, married only by Getty’s beats and Thomas’s
haunting voice. With “Miss You,” Thomas rips open his
chest, heart muscle exposed, and lets you watch it break as his
raw, often gritty voice tells you just how hard it was to walk away
from a woman he still loved too much. You can hear in his grating
notes the hurt that devoured him with every step. Sure, he might
not display the range of what most would call a great singer, but,
then again, those singers don’t pack the emotional punch the
sincerity in his voice does.
On “Talk To Me,” Thomas continues to bear his soul,
arguing for communication, while on “Raining Next Door,”
the singer-songwriter struggles with a depressed neighbor he is
unable to help and who resents him for crooning about his own supposed
melancholy. The finest track on the album, however, is undoubtedly
“Criminal,” on which Thomas taps the sense of abandonment
and isolation one gets the impression he’s been dealing with
since his own family orphaned him as a child. There are disposable
tracks, of course—“Strangerman,” “Black
As You,” and “Jackie” don’t meet the expectations
established by the other nine here—but, for all intents and
purposes, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a finer first album
released in the last few years. Innovative and strikingly original,
think Coldplay…that is, if Chris Martin had come of age in
LA’s bohemian underbelly—a world famous for unrealized
ambitions and compromised dreams. After a life plagued by disappointments,
maybe Scott Thomas is poised to finally get everything he’s
been working toward.—Cole Haddon
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