Exquisite African finger percussion, beautiful tactile drumming and a string section’s moony-eyed, dolorous sway all add up to the best-ever item in McRae’s extensive catalogue of girl-related traumas and unasked-for haircuts.
The fact that, as always, his winsomely tiny voice is in the foreground of so much melodrama just underscores the impression I’ve always had of McRae as a kind of Nick Cave mini-me: trying on Mr Gloomy Eyebrows’ stiff black suits when Cave Snr pops out for cigarettes, soundlessly practicing the sinisteria around the house. ‘If you let me,’ McRae mouths ominously into our ear, ‘I could love you to death.’ Tch! Get off me.
…NIIICK! Tom’s breathing on me again!