Before TV viewers ask, there is, thankfully, no version of U2's Beautiful Day on Tom Jones's latest record. Like its successful predecessor, 2010's God-fearing Praise & Blame, Spirit in the Room is an album of covers. It does not feature Jones's most recent venture into other artists' material, however, in which the massed ranks (and we use the word "rank" advisedly) of Jones and his fellow judges on BBC1's The Voice performed cruel and unusual punishments upon Beautiful Day the other week. You almost felt for the Irish rock titans as the remains of their Day lay bleeding on to the set. On the other hand, neither does this album feature Jones's blistering cover of Howlin' Wolf's Evil, or his extraordinary take on Jezebel, recorded with Jack White in the manner of a satanic Delilah. [...]
Spirit In The Room - The Independant Review 4/5*
Continuing the association with producer Ethan Johns that proved so fruitful on Praise and Blame, Tom Jones's 2010 exploration of American blues and gospel modes, Spirit in the Room takes a decisive step forward by focusing instead on a more modern repertoire. The sound remains substantially the same, but rather than pitting himself against history, as it were, Sir Tom here tests his interpretive grasp of contemporary classics. [...]
Spirit In The Room: A Guardian Review
Full marks for nerve to Tom Jones for opening his second successive album of stripped-down gravitas rock with Leonard Cohen's Tower of Song, transformed from hotel-bar funk into a finger-picked country blues. Cohen's version is a mordant, blackly comic meditation, but Jones can't play lines about "born with the gift of a golden voice" for laughs and so he turns it, unexpectedly and triumphantly, into a eulogy for a life in music. [...]
3 Great Spirit In The Room Reviews
Read 3 great reviews of 'Spirit In The Room' from NME, Time Out and Woman's Weekly Magazine [...]New AA Sided Single - 'Hit Or Miss' / 'Bad As Me'
Tom follows the announcement of the May release of his eagerly awaited new album ‘Spirit In The Room’ with news of a new AA sided single ‘Hit Or Miss’/‘Bad As Me’ on 14th May through Island Records. Hit Or Miss will be available to download from I tunes on Saturday 28th April ahead of the May 14th Impact date. [...]
Yesterday afternoon gave us a 2nd helping helping of world exclusives from Tom's 'Spirit In The Room', when Radcliffe and Maconie played 'Bad As Me' on their BBC 6 Music show.You can listen back via the BBC iplayer and hear the track at 1:40:50!
Let us know what you think!