Tom Verlaine
Dreamtime

As before, more than before.

Behind this foolish slogan hides the essence of the second studio work by Thomas Miller, known as Tom Verlaine, dated 1981: not a comma changes, but the result itself seems better than the previous album (albeit slightly). Verlaine indeed believes in his own signature, in the sound that has characterized him so far, and shows reluctance to modify it to make it more commercially appreciable, a decision that in the near future will create a certain redundancy in his production but that at the time, at the dawn of the colorful plastic decade and convinced optimism, was surely pleasing to the post-punks who were leaving record stores unwrapping this "Dreamtime" in the hope of finding solace.

Verlaine's attachment to his style is also, and above all, demonstrated by the fact that he had played most of the material written and never released for Television in the debut album, so in this second work he was effectively forced to write new pieces, and so it was: except for "Without a Word", which is reconstructed on the ashes of "Hard On Love" played by his former band during live shows, the songs presented here are newly composed but could have easily been performed 5 years earlier in various New York clubs without anyone noticing the difference. "There's A Reason" and "Down On The Farm" are two clear examples, strong and evident, of the return of the cold metropolitan minstrel who becomes increasingly addicted to the acid and simultaneously bright sound of his guitar, "Penetration" is structurally the child of what was "Elevation" beyond the evident rhyme in the titles and "Mary Marie" expresses the artist's malaise, always present, in a way that may appear calm, accompanied by bass and drums, but whenever he gets the chance, he almost screams it out crying. The compositions of Tom Verlaine, whatever subject they deal with, are always and nonetheless covered with the heartbreaking lament derived from cold modernity and seem meticulously designed to intertwine the parts so that the result conveys everything his mind endures. "Always" sounds almost romantic in its plot while the foundational musical setup remains firm, and when Verlaine lets himself go, one understands what is most missing in his world to escape the darkness ("darling, mysteries come and go but love remains the best kept secret in town"); however, the award for the best on the field goes to "Fragile", number 7, during which the voice becomes distant until it becomes secondary to the riffs and guitar solos that fill and hammer the eardrums; here is Verlaine's music, all here, and it matters little for now if it tends to repeat a little ("Mr. Blur" closely resembles "Foxhole").

From the cover itself, where he proudly displays his nose offside, Mr. Miller brings us into the grayness in which he is immersed and fills the verses with his poetry rooted in cement; if the first album of 1979 suggested that Television was entirely his creation, this second work confirms that the artist is alive, well, and devastated.