Toy // Toy
The debut album from the Horrors approved Toy. Anyone for a game of "spot the indie/alternative influence"?
Release 10th September 2012
Toy - Toy (Heavenly Recordings)
Three fifths of Toy were formerly in Joe Lean & the Jing Jang Jong, the band is endorsed by the Horrors and early press reports mentioned a VU/Krautrock hybrid. Whatever I was expecting of the group’s debut album this isn’t it, being an enjoyable and seemingly affectionate tribute to British indie and alternative, past-and-present.
Vocalist Tom Dougal manages, by turns, to sound like Lloyd Cole, Ian Broudie and both of the Mary Chain’s Reid Brothers. Musically, originality is in short supply, with references throughout to the indie scene, from post punk to the present. There are many hints of the Mary Chain, James and The God Machine but the influences fly thick and fast, with Catatonia (“The Reasons Why”), Glasvegas (“Dead & Gone”) and Pulp (“Drifting”) coming immediately to mind.
Highlights for this listener are “Motoring” and “Kopte”, the former being Joy Division-meets-The Bolshoi, the latter is an extended exercise in motorik beat that must be murder for bassist Maxim Barron to play.
Hopefully, extended touring will allow the band’s own character to come through for album no. 2. For now, I’ll go back to playing spot-the-influence!
Pavlis 7/10
