{"id":6107,"date":"2013-01-08T17:28:16","date_gmt":"2013-01-08T17:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=6107"},"modified":"2013-01-08T17:28:16","modified_gmt":"2013-01-08T17:28:16","slug":"toy-toy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2013\/01\/08\/toy-toy\/","title":{"rendered":"TOY – TOY"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"TOY-album\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This debut album from UK rockers, Toy, gleans inspiration from krautrock and post-punk, but shoegazing psychedelic pop would be a better description of their sound.Toy doesn\u2019t try to push the limits of psychedelic music. The strongest songs flow smoothly on a washed-out groove and from the first track, there\u2019s a feeling of something familiar, something old, something borrowed. \u00a0But a carbon copy is hard to find; it stems more from the unoriginal approach. The Morning After Girls<\/a> \u2013 The Dandy Warhols<\/a> of New Zealand \u2013 was the first group to come to my mind, despite their more energetic style. Comparisons have been made to Joe Lean and The Jing Jang Jong<\/a>, with a few Toy members hailing from the once-hyped now-defunct band. Their UK contemporaries, The Horrors<\/a>, are also an inspiration, but neither band sounds anything like Toy. \u00a0They\u2019re definitely less jagged and moody. Ultimately, Toy sounds like a group of talented British stoners trapped in vintage psychedelia.
\nGuitar pedals propel most of the album with some organs and synthesizers adding texture or melody. The more avant-garde offerings, like \u201cStrange\u201d<\/a> and \u201cKopter,\u201d <\/a>show off their krautrock influence but crash and burn in their own excess. Lead-singer, Tom Dougall, brings a too-cool-for-school attitude that lends itself well to \u201cMotoring\u201d and \u201cMake It Mine,\u201d<\/a> but veers too close to disinterest on the many lengthy or lengthy-feeling tracks. \u00a0\u201cReasons Why\u201d and \u201cMy Heart Skips A Beat\u201d<\/a> feature more distinct arrangements, with the latter being the best of the bunch. As a whole, this debut is very uneven and it\u2019s obvious that Toy doesn\u2019t know how to wrangle their influences into a cohesive product, just yet. I love mellow psychedelic rock albums but this one is a little pretentious and uninteresting for long periods of time. Still, it manages to be appropriate background sound to a chill night with friends. (Heavenly Recordings, heavenlyrecordings.com<\/a>) Matthew Dyck<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  This debut album from UK rockers, Toy, gleans inspiration from krautrock and post-punk, but shoegazing psychedelic pop would be a better description of their sound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[232,747,764,1043],"class_list":["post-6107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-dandy-warhols","tag-pop","tag-psychedlia","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}