Toy Horses are, as by the revered Steven Fry “his new favorite indie band”, an unlikely but invaluable event on the Toy Horses timeline that saw them entering the attention span of millions of tweeters nationwide. So In a way that is completely unique to most stories so far, Toy Horses are the latest potential pop act to surge to fame through the social media world. Not your typical troupe of uni dropouts hoping their band are really going to make it, these Cardiff new comers are centered on songwriting relationship of Adam D Franklin and Tom Williams.
None the less, they sound like a band who aren’t ashamed to come out wearing their instantly obvious influences on their sleeves and put together a straight up pop rock debut album and something that takes either naivety or some serious balls. But after several listens and with not too much to complain about, the latter still seems in doubt.
At only 10 tracks long and weighing in at just above 30 minutes long, “Toy Horses” is about as straight forward as you can get. There is only one intention behind this record; pop songs. Easy on the ears, chirpy pop songs that are fun for all the family, except perhaps for a seldom and quite out of place sounding F word. This record only takes a handful of listens before names like Scouting for Girls and yesterday’s dead and buried hype bands like Cajun Dance Party came to mind.
Adam and Tom possess vocals with an easy listening softness that doesn’t require range to tick the right boxes for staple design indie pop melodies which complement each other with hook laden harmonies and inescapable choruses that are quite annoyingly likeable. Young love and the consequential dramas of breaking up, stress and so forth are the genetic make-up of this albums lyrical themes and are on occasion articulated with some wit and creativity, see “And It was You” or “Loyal to the Cause”, but in other tracks, more dissapointly generically. The token Kaiser Chiefs bars of “la la las” “da da das” and “woo-oo-oohs” occupy several bridges and choruses as well. Not something which naysayers of mid-noughties indie approve of, but they’re not necessarily over used here either.
The father son partnership play it safe with the typical guitar, bass, drum kit set up for probably 98% of the listening here. Riffs are deliberately scarce. Instead licks of guitar tunes are feathered amongst the verses. For the remainder, there’s the occasional but quite effective fill of McCartney-esque piano ballad whilst “Interrupt” emerges at the end of the album with emotive Arcade Fire reminiscent violins and yet more Beatlesy pianos.
It has to be said though, they aren’t a band that you would be advised to go around shouting your love for. Trends in music come and go of course. For instance, writing Nu Metal songs in this day and age is more or less like facing commercial suicide and recent alternative pop poster boys Hurts are the first band to come out proudly sounding like The Pet Shop Boys, since, well, The Pet Shop Boys. This makes me wonder, had these guys been 6 years older and appeared with this debut during the days when the likes of Razorlight, The Kaiser Chiefs, The Kooks and other memorable suspects were in the height of popularity, then this release may well have enjoyed some indie press hype and some moderate, top 40 charts success.
But alas, for Toy Horses, the days when the Wombats and Mystery Jets made the covers of magazines seem long gone and as current trends stand, unless your indie is tinged with either washed electronica, folk or expansive Radiohead spaciness you can’t expect much attention.
Chirpy choruses are plentiful, and if you dig this style then there’s plenty to indulge in. Camp, plucky, safe and with a degree of cheese (be that deliberate or not) you can certainly see what Steven Fry enjoys about them.
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
We don't run any advertising! Our editorial content is solely funded by lovely people like yourself using Stereoboard's listings when buying tickets for live events. To keep supporting us, next time you're looking for concert, festival, sport or theatre tickets, please search for "Stereoboard". It costs you nothing, you may find a better price than the usual outlets, and save yourself from waiting in an endless queue on Friday mornings as we list ALL available sellers!
None the less, they sound like a band who aren’t ashamed to come out wearing their instantly obvious influences on their sleeves and put together a straight up pop rock debut album and something that takes either naivety or some serious balls. But after several listens and with not too much to complain about, the latter still seems in doubt.
