Emerging from Manchester’s ever-evolving indie underground, Tom Leonard’s new single ‘Clarity’ drifts in like a memory you didn’t realise you were holding onto. It’s the first new offering since his debut album ‘Here Comes the Horizon’, and it signals a refined direction and feels more emotionally distilled.
Built on a bedrock of hazy guitar textures and anchored by a pulsing synth bass, ‘Clarity’ speaks to those rare flashes of inner stillness amidst personal and collective unrest. Leonard leans into a sound that owes something to early shoegaze titans, but doesn’t stop there- this is a hybrid of ambient electronics, post-rock crescendos, and stripped-back songwriting.
Written and tracked at home using just a few basic tools, the track carries that unmistakable bedroom-recording DNA. What began with a bassline programmed out of necessity has become a central motif, bringing warmth and weight to the shimmering guitars that swirl with patient confidence. It’s a lo-fi ethos applied with real intent, the sort that invites you into a space of rich emotional texture.
Vocally, Leonard doesn’t push for dramatic peaks- he lets the words fall gently into place, creating a steady emotional pull rather than a theatrical one. It’s a delivery that complements the song’s thematic core: the desire to freeze a moment of understanding before it slips through your hands.
What’s striking about ‘Clarity’ is the mature tone and is the kind of song you return to late at night, when the noise quiets down and you finally have space to listen inward.
As the first taste of a forthcoming project, ‘Clarity’ doesn’t just build on Leonard’s earlier work- it subtly redefines it. If this is the beginning of a new chapter, it’s one that promises deeper textures, more risk, and a quietly carving out its own lane in the shoegaze-adjacent world. Keep your ears open- Tom Leonard is charting something powerful.