Song, by Toad

I don’t think I really hyped this album as much as a lot of the popular press, so perhaps I don’t have to feel quite as guilty about the subsequent letdown.  I did like their preceding EP Chunk of Change though – in fact I liked it an awful lot – but to re-read that review is to perhaps understand why I find this album so disappointing.  Here are some quotes:

“It’s just on the fringes of being way too electronic and frantic for me, and that atonal female wail seems like it’s daring me to call the whole thing tuneless garbage.”

“That distant female vocal, once you’ve adjusted, is really nice despite sometimes sounding like it was recorded in the middle of a football pitch on a mobile phone.”

“There isn’t an easy, pleasing sheen to this and I think that, as well as the satisfying, comfortable beat keeps me happy.”

Well, therein lies the problem with this full length release.  It’s smooth, electronic disco-pop, and it’s shit.  Previously, what I liked about this band was that off-kilter aspect to the music: the lurches and stumbles, which are almost entirely gone now. Where once there was “a less irritating Scissor Sisters”, here there is piss-poor disco pastiche band, whose eighties ‘do-dooo’ laser synth noises and other such tacky, cliched moments sound so needlessly selloptaped on top of the songs that they could be a five-year-old experimenting with the weird noise buttons on their keyboard for the first time.

So I am disappointed.  Did you get that yet?  I was, whilst not frothing with excitement, really rather looking forward to this album and now it’s here and it’s crap.  Remember MGMT releasing the excellent, edgy Time to Pretend (now annoyingly over-played, but it’s still a good song)?  And remember the incredibly soft, camp disco bobbins the rest of that album was?  Well Passion Pit have managed the exact same trick, just spread across one really promising EP and subsequent, spongy, lifeless album.

Passion Pit – Make Light

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Passion Pit – The Reeling (Really, truly awful, and the epitome of what is wrong with this record.)

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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Amazon

Well we’ve heard back from the lifeboat lady, and apparently our efforts (here, and the aftermath here) have managed to raise pretty much double the amount of previous years.  This, frankly, is fucking brilliant news so massive thanks to everyone who came along – Dave & Michael from The Stormy Seas, Neil from Meursault, Dylan from Blueback Hotrod, a random hot chick from Mrs. Toad’s work, Morgan from, er, Glasgow and Ed from 17 Seconds (& 17 Seconds Records).  Brilliant stuff – same again next year?

In other slightly random news, Mrs. Toad is getting all excited about the possibility of us doing house gigs.  We have most of a PA system which we use for the Toad Sessions, the living room is pretty big, and we have a massive fridge for beer.  The nice thing about this is that in the absence of paying a sound guy and room hire, we could easily ask for a fiver donation, all straight to the band, and it could actually turn out way more lucrative for a musician.  It would also be a really nice atmosphere, because our living room would look full with twenty people in it, never mind fifty, so if we were taking a chance on someone interesting but not at all famous, that might be a good way to do it.

We’d have to think of someone good to start with, I think, and be careful to keep it kind of low key at the beginning.  I was a little skeptical at first, I have to confess, but I have yet to speak to anyone who thinks it’s a bad idea, so we are likely to go ahead with it sooner rather than later.

And with that, maybe it’s time to start this Friday’s Fives.  This is everyone’s opportunity to get beyond the same old smart-arsed muppets in the comments section, de-lurk, and have their say, so lets go for it, people.  There’s no need to worry about not being the funniest or the cleverest (although, lets face, the bar is set pretty fucking low if you’re the competitive sort), but you will be mocked for your opinions.  Kindly, of course, but mocked you will be, and once you’ve written your five you can mock back.

So get going, you fruitcakes, it’s fucking Friday and I am going to some sort of crazy executive dinner part tonight with Mrs. Toad’s work.  She wants me to get my beard trimmed (which I won’t do), get my hair cut (which I might do) and actually iron a shirt (which, alright okay, I will do).  So while you’re out getting pickled out of your tiny little minds, spare a thought for me surrounded by braying yahoos from the financial services sector.  I’ll try not to get too pished and tell everyone to fuck off.  Try.  I’m making no promises.

1. Science Fiction – a good thing or a bad thing?
2. Your most inappropriate behaviour at a formal event.
3. Ever spent an evening as a trophy wife/husband/boyfriend/etc..?
4. Most painful first date activity.
5. Least favourite TV presenter.

Jeffrey Lewis & Laura Marling – Brain Damage (An Eminem cover, apparently – for more info and some ace Jeffrey Lewis movies see here.)

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Richard & Linda Thompson – Withered and Died (Thanks to Campfires & Battlefields)

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The Thermals – When We Were Alive

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The Mummers vs Passion Pit – Sleepyhead (Isn’t this one of those remix/mashup things?  Have I sunk this low?)

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The Sailplanes – The Bridge (New album coming soon, and they sound promising.)

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Hello, and welcome back to the slowly restarting new year of swearing and complaining here on Song, by Toad.  Don’t be too perturbed by the look of the thing.  This is not the final design, but as I am not a web designer it will have to do until I can figure out exactly what I want, lay it out properly, and then ask someone to code it for me.  That won’t be for a month or two though, so settle in for now and just ignore some of the crapper elements of the design – they won’t be permanent.

In other news, we have some splendid plans for 2009, so it should be another exciting (exhausting) year.  We are trying to get Meursault moving and arrange a couple of tours for them, which will be tedious.  We have a whole list of new releases for this year, including two Meursault 7″ singles, a split 12″ with the The Builders & the Butchers and Loch Lomond, the Loch Lomond album Paper the Walls is getting a UK release, Maxwell Panther and The Savings & Loan will be releasing records… and that’s just the ones we already know about.

In news more related to this site, rather than the label, we have Samamidon and The Pictish Trail now firmly booked in to record Toad Sessions before the end of January, there are plans to expand our coverage of Pickathon, Homegame and the End of the Road Festival, and of course increase the number of interviews and get a bit more video onto the site, as discussed in the previous thread.

So, I am not one for new year’s resolutions, but I am also incredibly lazy, so that’s what you’re getting for this Friday’s Favourites, as pinched from GUT.  If you want to suggest a Five at any point, just email me.  The music is taken from five of my favourite EPs from last year, as a sort of apology for not having a list on which they could be included.  I’ll try and put that right in 2009, but… ah, fuck it, that’s ages away.  Enjoy the new year, Toadlings.

1. Give us a new year’s resolution.
2. Recommend one for someone else.
3. Most anticipated 2009 release.
4. First gig of the year.
5. Suggest a quote for Toad t-shirt of the week.  T-shirt of the week you say?  Why yes, that’s just what I said.

Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – The Last Stanchion Goes Belly-Up

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The Avett Brothers – Murder in the City

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Passion Pit – Sleepyhead

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The Young Republic – Shiloh

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Over the Wall – Thurso

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I’ve heard these fellows derisively described as ‘darlings of the blogosphere’, in that 21st Century perjorative which means… well I’m not sure exactly. That people like them, I suppose. Anyway, I haven’t exactly seen widespread enthusiasm, myself, but maybe I’m not looking in all the right places.

It’s just on the fringes of being way too electronic and frantic for me, and that atonal female wail seems like it’s daring me to call the whole thing tuneless garbage. It ain’t, though. It gets so very close to so many things I dislike that I am once more surprised to find myself really enjoying this six song (well, plus a remix) mini-album.

That distant female vocal, once you’ve adjusted, is really nice despite sometimes sounding like it was recorded in the middle of a football pitch on a mobile phone. Actually it is aspects like this and the odd rhythmic lurches that give this album the idiosyncrasy that I perhaps needed to separate it from a sea of things I don’t like. It’s not smooth. There isn’t an easy, pleasing sheen to this and I think that, as well as the satisfying, comfortable beat keeps me happy. It’s got shades of a slightly more sprightly, bleepsome Postal Service or a less irritating Scissor Sisters and I like it. Splendid.

Passion Pit – I’ve Got Your Number
Passion Pit – Sleepyhead

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy the album from French Kiss | Buy the 7″ from Neon Gold

This podcast contains a large number of songs from albums which I didn’t really enjoy enough to want to review, but which nevertheless contained some excellent songs. I never want to give a small or emerging band a shitty review because it just feels mean. For me there’s a certain threshold to be reached, after which you are fair game for anything I feel like saying because, frankly, why would you care, but smaller bands are never going to get a really hard time on this site. Unless they behave like dicks of course, but I digress.

A lot of these albums contain songs I really like, but only one or two, and I really wanted them to be heard. Also, given that your music taste and mine probably only partially overlap anyway (otherwise it would just be creepy) I think it’s quite possible you might disagree and want to explore further. It always amazes me how seriously people can take my opinion, as some sort of self-appointed arbiter of musical worthiness, when neither I nor any other critic is any better placed or more worthy to judge than any random fanny off the street. The only thing that sets us apart is not musical judgment, it’s the slightly dubious compulsion to constantly be writing or talking about it for some unknown reason.

Anyway, that’s only about half a dozen songs on this list, the rest are just there either because they don’t entirely belong anywhere else, hence the Orphaned Songs title, and partly because I just felt like it. Enjoy…

Toadcast #39 – Orphaned Songs

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01. Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Let the Fever Out (HearYa Live Session) (02.40)
02. Passion Pit – Sleepyhead (07.30)
03. The Hurricanes – Down Below (13.46)
04. Simon Bookish – Dumb Terminal (21.30)
05. Adam & the Amethysts – Bumble Bee (23.49)
06. KiNo – Won’t Do (29.29)
07. Rags & Feathers – Silent Movie Starlets (33.04)
08. Woodpigeon – Home as a Romaticised Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always & Forever (37.39)
09. Eagle Seagull – I’m Sorry but I’m Beginning to Hate Your Face (44.56)
10. Meursault – Westward, Ho (51.53)
11. Sun Kil Moon – Carry Me Ohio (57.26)