When a sophomore record rolls in with a title like “Ten New Toe-Tappers for Shoplifting & Self-Mutilation”, you either strap in for the most pretentious hour of your life, or you prepare to get your skull kicked in by twelve tracks of pure, wired, existential indie rock. Tom Minor—London N1’s favourite son of angst—ain’t here for the former. This record kicks. Hard.
Picking up where Eleven Easy Pieces on Anger & Disappointment left off, Minor doesn’t just raise the bar; he smashes it over your head and asks if you’re paying attention. Produced by the ever-reliable Teaboy Palmer (who also ducks in with some “duck-divin’ harmonica” on Washed-Up Buoy), this record breathes, bleeds, and occasionally steals your drink at the bar.
Future Is an F Word kicks the door in. Is it a breakup song? A climate elegy? Both? Who cares. It’s three minutes and twenty seconds of power-pop tension that refuses to let up. Minor’s delivery swings between weary and wired, and that chorus—“For love’s rebellious bird / Future is an F-word”—hits like a lager bottle to the temple. Expanding Universe follows, and here’s where The Creatures Of Habit lock in. It’s a pimped-up, pumped-up hearse driving through your pristine ballpark, and the line “There’s nothing that will ever bring back the good old boys” lands with a thud.
Then comes Progressive or Punk. Oh, this one’s special. Minor wrote it eavesdropping on his parents’ old music scene stories, and you can hear it. The verses are cluttered with smoke and mirrors; the chorus is a fistfight between nostalgia and resentment. “Time’s such an arsehole, still who wouldn’t have thunk”—yeah, Tom. We felt that.
Bring Back the Good Ol’ Boys is the kind of track that shouldn’t groove this hard given the subject matter (authoritarian nostalgia, anyone?), but it does. It’s tongue-in-cheek, sure, but the marching drums underneath? They’re ominous. You’ve been warned.
Obsessive Compulsive is a three-minute spiral. Diagnosed or not, Minor captures the loop tape in your skull. The “404” reference, the grudges, the “autistic precision” of a mind that won’t quit—it’s confrontational, chaotic, and catchy as hell. Closing Side 1 is Next Stop Brixton. Four minutes and thirty-eight seconds of pure cinematic yearning. Johnny Dalston steps in on solo guitar, and his lines weep. This is the story of a man returning to his old stomping ground, three timelines colliding on a Northern line train. Victoria Line, Belgravia, the Oval loop—it’s a love letter to London, but one written from the edge of a cliff. “You’d be quite handsome if you had a spine.” Ouch.
Washed-Up Buoy opens SIDE 2 with Teaboy Palmer’s harmonica duck-diving through the mix. It’s a blues-tinged, waterlogged confession. Minor’s vocal is half-drowned, half-defiant. The Manic Phase is a tribute to Thievin’ Stephen—a real character from Minor’s Soho days. Big bloke, south of the river, bipolar, stole drinks and hearts in equal measure. The track shifts gears like a drunk joyrider. “Recreational use of lithium and lukewarm water / Ain’t that the way to spend your youth?” It’s tragic. It’s funny. It’s rock and roll.
The Loneliest Person on Earth might be the quietest storm here. Acoustic, aching, a duet between two people who can’t stop hurting each other. “If I’m the loneliest boy ever born in the world / Then you’re the loneliest person on earth, aren’t you girl.” It’s devastating. No explosions. Just the slow burn of a relationship in terminal disrepair.
Outgoing Individual struts. This is Minor at his most New York, New York—SoHo catwalk swagger wrapped in existential dread. “Who’s gonna outbitch you all, baby?” Excessive Impulsive is the shortest track here at 2:18. Undiagnosed or not, it’s a punk shot to the gut “as long as you live”. No apology.
And then we close with Change It! Johnny Dalston returns on guitar, and this time he’s not weeping—he’s wailing. Change It! is a call to arms. “I’m gonna change it today / I just don’t know what it is.” Ain’t that the truth? It’s the sound of someone standing in the wreckage of their own life, tools in hand, unsure what they’re building but certain it can’t stay the same.
The outro—“Of Human Endeavour: Unclean living under difficult circumstances”—reads like an epitaph. But the music? It’s a rebirth.
Tom Minor has done it. “Ten New Toe-Tappers for Shoplifting & Self-Mutilation” is not an easy listen. It’s jagged, self-aware, and refuses to look away from the mess of modern existence. But it’s also catchy as hell. Minor, The Creatures Of Habit, Johnny Dalston, and Teaboy Palmer have all made something that sounds like the end of the world—but at least we’re tapping our toes to it.
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