I remember seeing Bread And Circus<\/i>, the debut release from Toad The Wet Sprocket, in the studio back in my college radio days. I also remember not having the courage or foresight of playing them on the air; in fact, it wasn\u2019t until Glen Phillips and crew experienced their first taste of success with \u201cWalk On The Ocean\u201d a few years later that the light bulb in my head went on, and I said, \u201cOh, so those<\/i> are the guys?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, better late than never, I guess. There are two amazing things about this particular album\u2014the first being that Toad The Wet Sprocket\u2019s signature sound was already almost completely developed at this early stage in their career. The second is that most of the band was still college age when this was recorded\u2014and Phillips was still under the age of 20! Indeed, the groundwork was there\u2026 but there was still polish that needed to be applied.<\/p>\n
Opening with one of the two singles pulled from the disc, \u201cWay Away,\u201d one can almost immediately hear the Toad The Wet Sprocket we\u2019ve come to know in the first three minutes of the album. It\u2019s all there\u2014the jangly guitars, the harmonized vocals, Phillips\u2019s low-key delivery that just fits the material like a glove.<\/p>\n
The one issue I have with Bread And Circus<\/i> is that the material overall isn\u2019t strong enough to keep the listener completely interested; indeed, I had to listen to this album about three times before I was completely comfortable with it. For every strong track like \u201cKnow Me,\u201d \u201cOne Wind Blows\u201d and \u201cOne Little Girl\u201d (the last one being rather appropos for the world circa 2022), there are songs like \u201cScenes From A Vinyl Recliner,\u201d \u201cPale Blues\u201d and \u201cAlways Changing Probably.\u201d These aren\u2019t bad songs, nor could I make the claim they\u2019re not fully developed. It\u2019s just that there is precious little that stands out in them that makes the listener sit up and pay attention; it becomes background music, albeit pleasant background music.<\/p>\n
Still, one has to hand it to Toad The Wet Sprocket for coming up with a debut effort that is as strong overall as Bread And Circus<\/i> is. Playing the role of \u201carmchair quarterback,\u201d it\u2019s easy to listen to a band\u2019s early material, compare it to latter-day output, and note the areas that hadn\u2019t developed to that point. But in the case of Toad The Wet Sprocket, the pieces were most definitely in place early enough; it just needed that \u201cX\u201d factor to push them over the edge\u2014and to me, that would have simply been gaining more experience they could apply to their craft.<\/p>\n
Bread And Circus<\/i> is often overlooked in Toad The Wet Sprocket\u2019s discography\u2014as my actions (or lack thereof) in college radio proved. It\u2019s not the strongest album they have, but it\u2019s definitely worth checking out, if only to hear them poised to make their name on the world of alternative rock.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10785],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-46459","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-toad-the-wet-sprocket","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46459"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}