TOMBERLIN expands sound with delicate, expansive soundscapes on second album

TOMBERLIN

I Don’t Know Who Needs To Hear This (Saddle Creek)

The comforting vocal texture of Sarah Beth Tomberlin is still as present as ever during her second album, I Don’t Know Who Needs To Hear This. The success of At Weddings, her debut as Tomberlin and a record penned while residing at home in Illinois, catapults the songwriter into further intricate melodies and sparse instrumentation. I Don’t Know Who Needs To Hear This lives up to this and pushes it further afield, building bigger soundscapes but always leaving the vocal so listeners can hang off every word: Memory is one fine example of this.

Opener Easy is of a cosmic nature, vast as if it could cover distances with its atmospherics, weighty percussion and lingering piano chords; single Tap finds solace in an outpour of questions, Tomberlin offering up “I’m not a singer, I’m just someone who’s guilty” over expressive drums and light, plucked characterful acoustic guitars. She revisits adolescence and religious themes, too, in the personal Born Again Runner.

words EMMA WAY