Labels: self released
Review by: Kunal Nandi
The pair of utterly majestic demos released by this Lafayette, Louisiana quintet are truly epic in scope. With an average track length of around 10 minutes, a triple-guitar based sonic attack armed with banks of effects pedals and no vocals whatsoever (save for some sparse sampling), TOATEOH have come up with a form of rock music that is myriad layered whilst still remaining completely accessible. Everything I’ve mentioned (including that honking great band name) may point towards over-indulgent prog worship, but the pure orchestrated complexity is equally informed by classical music as well as the pure massagingly tuneful wall of sound stadium rock can provide. Imagine a vast melting pot, with Pink Floyd, Hum, My Bloody Valentine, Pelican, Kyuss, Mogwai and Brian Eno all thrown in. This is the resulting cake with a cherry on top.
Personal fave “Tony Goes Crazy” kicks things off in fast and furious style, with life-affirming major chord changes, before settling into a mid-tempo groove. The ambient section that follows phases in and out of consciousness before the song winds itself up with not a whimper, but a whisper. This band runs the gamut within each song, each second as vital and as different to the last. Every so often a “bit” will come along, be it a sudden riffy flourish or an invading rock-out into the mellow calm that simply floors you, snapping your attention back to the immediate here and now after lulling you into a trance-like state with their beautiful and, in a way, more interesting calmer passages.
It is immensely heart-warming to find bands in the arse-end of nowhere willing to experiment with wanton abandon and ambition these days to produce that rarest of things – a band that doesn’t really sound like anyone else.