Tom Chicoine isn’t quite a newcomer – an album in 2016, an EP in 2021, a few contests in between. But his arrival in the Audiogram team seems to have given him a real boost, as did his meeting with Éric Goulet, with whom he started working two years ago: in fact, the singer of Les Chiens left his mark as a director and musician on this beautifully crafted pure country-rock album.
In fact, if we had to judge an artist by his entourage, Tom Chicoine would have a perfect score: Alex Burger from Bon Enfant on bass, David Marchand (guitar, pedalsteel) and Mandela Coupal-Dalgeish (drums) from Mon Doux Seigneur, Ariane Roy on harmonies, what a talent here, in addition to well-chosen special guests like the Hay Babies on a great cover of For your love by Renée Martel or Rick Hayworth on acoustic guitar for a French version of So Lonesome I Could Cry by Hank Williams (12).
As we can see, Tom Chicoine knows his classics – his frankly successful adaptation of I’ll Be There in the Morning (Until morning) by Townes Van Zandt also bears witness to this. The album is therefore in perfect harmony with its country influences, speaks of escape and wide open spaces, of heartbreak and light flirting, and we feel even in the slightest guitar solo, in each vibration of lapsteel, in its deep and rich voice also her deep North American roots.
Tom Chicoine is part of this new generation of artists who embrace country. If we like the genre, we are with him in perfect company, but he may lack the small dose of the second degree of his colleague Alex Burger which would make him stand out. Next to the funny title piece Super Sport enginehappy road song with hillbilly overtones, which moves irresistibly without a single kilometer being rolled – “ My motorcycle, I want to repair my motorcycle “, he says from the start – some texts fall rather flat, neither really down to earth in the pure country tradition nor really poetic.
Not all of them of course, there are gems here and there, perfectly used vernacular and well shot images, but above all we retain from this album a real country elegance that gently tickles the ear.
country-rock
super sports engine
Tom Chicoine
Audiogram