Four lengthy tracks of fucking killer indie rock recorded by Kurt Ballou (read: the production is slick as shit). Everything is bright and clear, not to mention really dry and natural sounding. The bass plays a great role in the mix, the vocals are right in the heart of the music, etc. Awesome. As for their style, there are lots of layered guitars with plenty of interaction between instruments, the rhythm section is awesome and works on its own to add to the songs rather than simply providing a backdrop, the bassist is great and jumps back and forth a lot with basslines that don't really mimic what the guitars are doing, and the drumming has sort of a laidback jazzy sort of flare to it. I like the vocals as well because they're just straight singing. Nothing crazy or over the top, just nice, soft, plain ol' singing. It's pretty somber stuff, using semi jangly clean guitars and a good level of distortion that's not that heavy but also keeps from getting abrasive. The writing is fucking awesome, though. It's really emotional on a gut level, and they're very capable musicians that subtly fuck with odd time signatures and whatnot here and there to keep the repetition and drawn out instrumental passages interesting. The title track is entirely instrumental, but they absolutely pull it off because their writing is really expressive. This is just great stuff. The CD comes in a nice gatefold digipack type of sleeve with awesome full color artwork that has a crude late-70's/early-80's sort of feel with a pencil/charcoal illustration over roughly textured paper. It definitely has a unique appearance happening. The lyrics don't really do much for me at all, but that's life. "I can barely breathe what I achieve. I love a diamond in the whore's red eyes. Your words are deafening. Your words are deafening. I'm deaf. Now we're two, no you're two faced." Musically this is one of the best indie rock CD's I've heard in a long, long time. It's reminding me of some bands I used to listen to five or six years ago that are escaping my mind right now, but I don't feel like this is rehashed or unoriginal. It's fucking good. The only song I don't really care for is "Tonite, We're on the Outside-Surface", but the other three songs more than make up for that. And I really look forward to hearing more, so I hope they drop a full-length at some point... definitely check this out if you're down with this kind of action.
[Toilet Fleet]
Running time - 25:36, Tracks: 4
[Notable tracks: You Should See Her Use a Gun..., [Breathe[Achieve]
Toilet Fleet Records - http://www.toiletfleet.com
