Toad the Wet Sprocket took three years to release the follow-up to their excellent fourth album Dulcinea<\/i>, but the music world had started to change in the late \u201990s and the band\u2019s melodic, moody pop-rock was no longer drawing a major audience. And while a great album could have overcome this, Coil <\/i>is mostly a retread of the sounds and moods that made the previous albums so good.<\/p>\n
For fans of those albums, this is good news. The opening triptych of \u201cWhatever I Fear,\u201d \u201cCome Down\u201d and \u201cRings\u201d is nine minutes of borderline-melancholy power pop that is nearly as good as any other Toad songs you care to name, though maybe lacking the killer hooks of the band\u2019s best work. \u201cDesire\u201d is pretty good too, a little bit harder-edged for this band, perhaps pointing to a future that could have been.<\/p>\n
The best track is in the middle of the album: \u201cDon\u2019t Fade\u201d glides in a blue haze of jangly guitars and regret, leading to an emotional climax under the mystifying lyrics (did someone actually drown?). Nearly as good is \u201cAmnesia,\u201d which brings to mind Live\u2019s 1997 album Secret Samadhi <\/i>in its layers of serious guitars, midtempo alt-rock tone and impassioned vocals. And yes, it closes with a very good guitar solo. <\/p>\n
But a chunk of the album never rises above \u201cpleasant\u201d and \u201creliable,\u201d which implies a comfort level that is a dangerous area for a band past their prime. \u201cDam Would Break,\u201d \u201cLittle Man Big Man,\u201d \u201cCrazy Life,\u201d the closing \u201cAll Things In Time\u201d and \u201cThrow It All Away\u201d fade from memory almost immediately. The only true misfire on the album is the dreadful, string-laden and off-kilter \u201cLittle Buddha,\u201d which was so bad I couldn\u2019t even finish it. Points for trying to experiment at this late stage, I guess, but damn. <\/p>\n
The band would break up the year after this album came out, effectively ending the commercial phase of their career, with only two albums released since 1997 and the obligatory reunion shows. Going out on a solid album is hardly the worst thing, but Coil <\/i>ends up falling just short of the status established by previous releases. Still, the best songs on it are worth hearing for fans of the band or the era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":35254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10785],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-47140","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\/47140","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47140"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}