4/5
Shake out your black roll-neck sweaters and polish up your Chelsea boots: it’s Toy time. The hip, London-based quintet’s debut LP arrives in a kaleidoscopic, droning fog of fuzzed and jangling guitars, fizzing analogue synths and reverb-laden vocals, anchored by the kind of insistent grooves developed by ’70s krautrock bands Neu! and Harmonia.
But if that makes Toy sound like technical nerds nostalgic for a time even their parents are far too young to remember, it’s selling them short. They’ve channelled their trippy retro leanings through more recent history – bands Ride and House of Love get a workout on ‘Motoring’, and ‘The Reasons Why’ is pretty much a love letter to My Bloody Valentine, but ‘Drifting Deeper’ shows off their interest in experimental electronics. A highlight is darkly groovy epic ‘Dead and Gone’, which finds Toy shifting up the gears to create a buzz so thrillingly physical you can practically see it pouring from your speakers. This one demands maximum volume. Sharon O’Connell
