If Tom Tikka and the Missing Hubcaps prove nothing else, they conclusively show when you play something is even more important than what you play. Take the drumming for example – by any measure, the drumming featured throughout the three song EP Working Class Voodoo is the ideal of blue collar meat and potatoes drumming, nothing intricate, but the difficulty of pocket drumming and the knowledge of where to lay those beats down in a given track is a gift not all drummer possess. The same with the guitar. There is a fine line between empty guitar heroics and playing that enhances a song’s impact on listeners but Tikka and his fellow musicians stay on its right side for the entirety of Working Class Voodoo. The brief collection is better off for it.
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A single listen to the title track proves that point. “Working Class Voodoo” opens the EP on a near raucous note, but despite its atmospherics, Tikka keeps a leash on the song and never lets it veer off course. He balances shadow and light well exchanging ripping distorted guitar chords for emotive harmony vocals. His voice has a slightly unusual, even nasal, tone, but he uses it to his advantage and possesses considerable emotive powers of his own. It makes for an excellent opening to the EP.
“Daytime Suffering” is the second half of an excellent one-two combination. Tikka wheels out some heavier guitar firepower for this performance but doesn’t deviate from his main trajectory; creating accessible guitar-laden tracks that, nonetheless, resolutely avoid the bash and thud school of hard rock. Tikka’s songwriting is far too clever for that. “Daytime Suffering” is one of those tracks clearly signaling that Tikka has truly found his place in the pantheon of modern songwriters and no one else serves up quite exactly what he does. He further separates this song from the opening number with some blistering lead guitar in the song’s near-final passages.
Tikka has continued elevating his game as a songwriter during his years with both Carmen Gray and The Impersonators. Those efforts pay off most handsomely with confident self-assured numbers such as the final track “What Is Love?” He takes his music in a different direction with this closer, a much more plotted dramatic effort rather than demonstrating the same off the cuff-like grace of the first two tracks, and this constructed approach to his music leaves a mark on listeners.
I feel confident saying his future releases, whether they are solo or part of a band project, will continue to leave a mark on anyone who hears it. Tikka has the precious talent for commandeering existing forms and making something of his own from them. The familiarity and seeming newness co-existing side by side gives these three songs a personal flavor missing from much of popular music today and show off the skillset of a songwriter nearing the peak of his powers. Tom Tikka and the Missing Hubcaps’ Working Class Voodoo is the sort of music we need in these star-crossed times.
Loretta Kim