Manchester’s Tom Leonard has released a new single, “The Fathoms Deep Pool of Love,” a song that sounds as deep and dense as its name implies. Crucially, there’s a creation story behind his latest release. The synth work, and lush filled with subtle detail, wasn’t made in a fancy studio, but assiduously programmed on a long flight to the United States. The result, something he created in the strangest situation, at least seems to have put the track in motion, not just the album, but the heated creativity that listeners can hear in every striking note.
Returning to Manchester, Leonard laid down the track in his personal studio, which in turn lent it a bitter-sweet sense of intimacy and honesty that suits the song’s lyrical bedrock perfectly. The final touch was done at Woods Studio in Norway, and the mastering was made there, so the striking part of the sound came out. The result is a song that somehow seems both personal and universal, a diary entry turned widescreen.
“The Fathoms Deep Pool of Love” is the theme of love that persists, even as the configurations of a relationship change. Leonard balances that tension with a tenderness that avoids sentimentality. The lyrics grapple with how support and devotion can bend but not break, even as everything around it does, evoking the bittersweet resilience of long-term connection. It’s a point of view that feels lived-in and authentic, voiced with openness and quiet resolve.
The track highlights Leonard’s range. There’s an amalgamation of electronic and organic textures, genre-blurring is a bit of a signature for him. As the synths swirl and pulse, drawing firm new-wave boundaries around the song, the storytelling roots it in adulthood’s most timeless human experience. It’s this mixture that makes “The Fathoms Deep Pool of Love” not just another release, but a declaration of intent.