It took me six years to pick up the second Toadies album, which took *them* six years to put out. Hell Below/Stars Above starts out of the gate real fast - "Plane Crash" and "Push The Hand" continue the precedent first set on Rubberneck, with their off-signature tempos and general rawkin' goodness. Sadly, the album loses steam about halfway through with some slightly interchangeable numbers before the band salvages the end (the title track is excellent, and "Pressed Against The Sky" is an awesome non-traditional rock ballad). And a Toadies album wouldn't be a Toadies album if the band didn't bring sufficient quantities of Creepy - here, the dark "Jigsaw Girl" fills the bill.
Really, it's still a fun album, though they'd set the bar so high with their debut that they were really doomed from the start, I think. My thought while listening to the middle of the album was this:
It was six years between records, but I wonder if they should have had more time to put out the album. I mean, six years, and they couldn't do any better than "Heel"? Really?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I need to get Rubberneck again...I'm a dumbass for ever letting it slip away.
ReplyDeleteThat album rocks!!!!
I'm in the process of burning you a bunch of music. Just so you know.
Congrats on the job, btw.
I shall burn you Rubberneck.
ReplyDeleteI'm also burning you the last two B&S albums. I finally got The Life Pursuit earlier this week. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost swear they were a glam band.