Toy
Toy
Join The Dots
(Heavenly)
On the strength of last year's self-titled debut album, some people dismissed Toy as mere peddlers of shoegaze nostalgia, trapped in an eternal student union disco where Swervedriver were always on the playlist. True, Tom Dougall's vocals were dry and dispassionate while the droning guitars around him slid and slipped between chords as if treading on Kevin Shields's icy backyard. But they knew a tune when they saw one and could set up a steady krautrock rhythm that recognised influences like Can as much as The Cure. This quickly delivered follow-up takes a more expansive approach to the music, pushing it further out into the space-rock universe that their debut's more psychedelic moments only flirted with. On Left To Wander and the 8-minute title track, the repetitive rhythms that trundle along the serrated white line of the autobahn are built as much upon Maxim Barron's bass riffs as Charlie Salvidge's drum patterns. Endlessly and As We Turn while, offering nothing we didn't hear back in the late 1980s, are indie-rock at its most swooning and timeless.
Alan Morrison
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