Arts & Entertainment

Tom Goss preps new album for Aug. release

‘Bears’ singer has edgy, experimental project ready

Published

10 years ago

July 28, 2016

Out singer/songwriter Tom Goss veers into unchartered creative waters with his new album, slated for an Aug. 2 release. (Photo courtesy Venfield 8)

Tom Goss new album 2016

Tom Goss should be a familiar name to D.C.-area music fans. The LGBT singer/songwriter/guitarist was a longtime mainstay of the local scene before relocating to Los Angeles last year.

We last heard from Goss earlier this year when his haunting reimagining of the Dusty Springfield classic “Son of a Preacher Man,” set to a stirring and provocative video in support of the Trevor Project suicide prevention initiative, went viral and received enormous acclaim. That success set the stage for “What Doesn’t Break,” Goss’ sixth full-length album and his first since 2014’s excellent “Wait.” He returns to the region for a show at Iota Club and Cafe in Arlington on Sunday, Aug. 7 (details here).

“What Doesn’t Break,” slated for an Aug. 2 release, is a departure for Goss, who is known for his often buoyant acoustic-guitar based power pop. The new album is a progression into deeper and more personal material with an edgy and experimental vibe. He collaborates with producer Marr Zimm, who helps create a complex and dense soundscape of electronic elements, brass and strings weaving through the layers of Goss’s excellent guitar-work. The ambition of the music is matched by the intensely personal songwriting and powerful vocal performances. “What Doesn’t Break” exhibits clear artistic progression for Goss while retaining the genuine heart, sincerity and strong melodic sensibility for which he’s always been known.

Goss expresses raw emotion and vulnerability on a level far beyond what he’s presented previously, and it wasn’t always an easy process.

The album opens with the jittery “Wake Alive,” with Goss singing the verses in his resonant lower register before breaking into an anthemic arena-rock chorus. “Thirteen” is a harrowing stare into the rearview at sometimes painful youthful turmoil and how those experiences shaped the man he is today. “Holes in the Wall” is a heartrending break-up song set to shimmery strings, keyboards and a lushly beautiful choral vocal arrangement.

The ominous “Someone Else” is a tense and piercingly direct rocker seething with rage and venom. In a bit of inspired sequencing, he follows the angriest piece on the album with perhaps the loveliest and most heartbreaking, “Mama.” Goss delivers arguably the album’s finest vocal with a song that begins as an exquisite acoustic ballad with soaring strings before exploding into a propulsive, wrenching catharsis that explores the painful reality of the vast distance that can engulf families over divergent beliefs and an inability to come to terms with love as it’s meant to be.

The synth-driven “All My Love” is a late highlight, an achingly devotional ballad layered with sublime vocal harmonies. The biggest sonic departure on an album loaded with them is the electro-pop finale “Long Way Back Home.” It ends the collection with a philosophical and nostalgic bent, appropriate for the poignant musical journey that has unfolded over the course of these 10 songs.

Some fans may be startled by the intensity and restlessness that Goss delivers here, but the emotion is so real and the songs are so expertly crafted that it’s hard to avoid getting caught up in the album’s dramatic sweep. It’s a triumph for Tom Goss, a leap forward that’s both intimate and exciting.

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Books

New book reveals what we can learn from animal sex

‘Poking the Squid’ on homosexuality, gender swapping, and more

Published

23 hours ago

July 13, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy W.W. Norton)

‘Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex’
By Perrin Roosevelt Ireland
c.2026, W.W. Norton
$29.99 241 pages

Birds do it.

According to Cole Porter, bees do, too, but it’s not exactly what he imagined. Wild and tame, avians, insects, and mammals all have sex – although not always as you’ve been told or for reasons you might think. Even educated fleas do it and, as in the new book, “Poking the Squid” by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland, humans can learn from them all.

If you read through scientific papers on animal reproduction, you might notice something unusual: for scientists, the word “sex” means a lot of different things.

Says Ireland, “It’s used to describe behaviors, biology, life histories, and more.”

That might be because animals are not simply binary.

Take, for instance, hyenas. It’s easy for the casual observer to mistake a male hyena for a female and vice versa because of stereotypes of anatomy. Mating, for hyenas, requires subordination for the male and a nifty trick on the part of the female’s body to get things done.

Our feathered friends are no birdbrains, either: black-browed albatrosses were once thought to be monogamous but global warming seems to have changed their nesting habits sometimes. Male flamingos have sex with one another, as a territorial thing; other birds and animals form same-sex pairs for other reasons.

The Chinese mantis eats her mate after fertilization. Female snakes, alpacas, guinea pigs, and monkeys are anatomically able to enjoy sex. Genitalia between species varies quite a bit; in fact, the vaginas of ducks “are highly complex.” Lionesses will mate up to 100 times when in heat. Female damselflies will change into a “third sex” to avoid overly aggressive mating males. Bearded dragons can change their sex, if needed, as can yellow clown goby fish. And seahorse pregnancy and birth sparked a book banning in Tennessee.

So, asks Ireland, if animals, including us, vary so much in biology and life, “… why are we using the word sex like it means something, anything, consistent?!”

Pick up “Poking the Squid,” page through it a few seconds, and you’ll see that the information here is largely told through cartoon-like drawings mixed with captions. It seems to be something on the lighter side, but don’t let that artwork fool you.

Author Perrin Roosevelt Ireland offers readers solid information that cozies up to the scholarly, with hard science, philosophy, feminism, and quotations from researchers to support it, thus furthering the narrative and hitting the points squarely. If you see the art and expect something lighthearted, comic, and small-talk-worthy, you could be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you want solid, wryly serious facts, you’re in for a treat.

There’s lots of learning to be gleaned here, and some slight nudge-wink whimsy to emphasize the absurdity of wrong-headed thinking. This can make readers feel like they’re in-the-know on the jokes, and the playfulness balances the seriousness of the information well.

So, serious, scholarly, or slightly silly, none of these are negative but you’re going to know what you want from a book like this. For the right reader, someone in the mood, “Poking the Squid” is wild.

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