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Some people are just commanding performers. Across the breadth of Any
Other City, Sue Tompkins' inspired vocal performance lifts Life
Without Buildings' deftly played, distortion-free, gently aggressive
Velvets/Television-styled rock to inspired highs. In a deceptively
sweet English voice, Tompkins lets words loose like torrents of
emotion, rambling with sighing, slurring delivery through strung-out
exercises in associative free thought. Tompkins fumbles the phonetics
of her free-form flows, drawing attention to her deft deconstruction
of syllables and frayed, haphazard word assemblies. Her delivery
often includes repeated words and phrases, spat out over and over to
define their poetic simplicity, as in "The Leanover." Stuttering out
each simple turn of phrase, her vocal here seems the musical
equivalent of verbal abuse.
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