REVIEW

This album is quiet like Nick Drake. It's early morning music, stripped down, acoustic based confessional style music. The chamber style arrangement fit well with Glenn Philips shaky, unsure, young vocal style. This album was recorded before they hit it big. And it shows. No overt rockers here, no pandering or imitating one's self, Toad is complacent to lay back, minstrel style and spin songs about death, and love and drinking and more death and all the things that made this pseudo folky album immediately feel like one you've had forever. Pale sticks out like a thumb in it's late 80/early 90's aversion to all the flowery nouveau psychedelic hip-house music making the rounds in those days. These guys just roll up to the muic and let it go. no, gimmicks, or effects. Just staight forward live playing. It's kind of like they were playing in some late summer festival in the quiet part of the afternoon we never notice until it's over. These are soft, brooding songs, all about realizing you've lost that childhood shroud protecting you from the world. And wanting it back.It would be about three more years before people started knowing about Toad, and six more before I heard this cd, but I was hooked right quickly. I guess it's my penchant for all that brooding, confessing music, makes me fel better when I hear it, and it's always best early in the morning, or when it rains. On some songs I think I can hear it raining, but they didn't record it outside, it just sounds like it.There's even some comedy. Corporal Brown is just another guy who kills his fat 'raving bitch' wife. With Toad as your humble drunken narrarator, I chuckle every time I hear it. It's the only reason I ever heard this album in the first place."Hey here's a song about a drunk guy who kills his wife." "Cool". This song's been on damn near every mix I've made since I heard it.The next song is Jam. It's the one toad ended up modeling all it's "boy just can't get girl" songs from hear on out. I can relate to this song in too many ways, another one to try to make you smile. This is essential listening, I like it lots. It's just so quiet, and truthful, sad, and alone, just like me sometimes, but when I listen to it, not so much, becasue someone out there a long time ago felt just like me. He just knew what to do with those thoughts. "Oh Lord, What the Hell Am I Gonna Do?"