The dozen tracks included on Tom Tikka’s newest album Rainbows & Dead Flowers mark two decades of high-profile work for the former Carmen Gray and Sony/BMG songwriter. Despite co-authoring eleven of the cuts with Antti Autio, a former bandmate from The Impersonators, it is a resolutely personal collection. It is his third solo album since 2020, so he’s prolific, but his prodigious output hasn’t affected his artistic quality. Each of Rainbows & Dead Flowers’ songs reflects not just his long journey through modern music, but the personal voyage he’s experienced over the last twenty years and has ample musical firepower to back it up. It is a fully realized work that speaks volumes about his continued growth and sparkles with the promise of greater triumphs to come.
The title song rates as one of the album’s major musical statements. It begins as a near-folkie tune based around acoustic guitar, but Tikka and his songwriting partner Autio extend its reach into artsy pop territory with assorted arranging surprises scattered throughout the tune. It has a deliberate pace, and the vocal arrangement is among the album’s best. “Hieroglyphs” has an abundance of dark humor scattered amidst images of dissipation and self-indulgence. It features one of Tikka’s most inspired vocals for this album and you can hear him feeding off the nearly surreal lyrical imagery and scintillating guitar work. It’s one of my favorite tracks from the album.
“Something New” is one of the album’s best ballads. Elegantly melodic piano is the song’s jumping-off point for Tikka dispatching one of his most emotive vocals about longing in the face of despair. The lyrics are straightforward and suit the song quite nicely. It’s a single from the release that’s gained substantial traction for Tikka, particularly in the UK. He breaks out horns for the strident and entertaining romp “What Goes Around Comes Around”. The pop crossed with R&B vibe of this gem midway through the album comes at an excellent time as it illustrates the diversity of Rainbows & Dead Flowers’ songwriting. Tikka’s up to the task as well. He sings with nervy and inspired verve throughout the performance.
The breezy pop-rock of “The Loveliest Rose” flies by thanks to its propulsive drumming and the loose, confident tilt of its arrangement makes it another candidate for a strong single. The retro-guitar rock of “Stalemate” makes for an excellent shift and has a bright, lively sound that runs counter to its rather dispirited lyrical content. Tikka’s talent for shifting gears multiple times over the course of these dozen songs without veering into uncharted territory is one of the more remarkable high points of Rainbows & Dead Flowers.
He concludes the collection with “Let’s Make Love on Sunday”. His speaker is wrestling with a floundering relationship but hasn’t given up hope entirely and the lyrics find him searching in earnest for ways to go on. It’s a final example of Tom Tikka’s effective method of marrying complicated adult songwriting with accessible arrangements and closes Rainbows & Dead Flowers on somewhat of an ambiguous, but ultimately upbeat, note. There isn’t a single miss among these twelve songs and it stands as another durable work from this gifted songwriter and performer.
Garth Thomas