[rating=7.00]
For Toadies’ seventh studio album, the Fort Worth quartet went into the studio without a plan, coming up with songs as they went with no roadmap in terms of the sonic terrain they wanted to cover. The resulting album, The Lower Side of Uptown, is a departure from the softer, more subdued aesthetic the band created on 2015’s Heretics. Instead, this album feels a bit more like Toadies’ earlier work and is its heaviest output of the post-hiatus era.
Heavily influenced by the grunge and punk movements of the late 80’s, Toadies is at its best when ripping through energetic mosh pit fodder. There is a taste of that here, especially with the wild intensity of “Polly Jean,” but for the most part the album comes up a bit short of recapturing the form of Rubberneck or Hell Below/Stars Above. The album packs a punch to be sure, but not with the same frequency or ferocity of Toadies’ earlier work.
Eschewing the quieter, more melodic nature of recent releases, The Lower Side of Uptown is a hard-hitting rock album built on pounding rhythms and heavy guitar riffs. “You Know the Words” is a slow banger with an infectious repetitive groove, reflecting the repetitive requests in the lyrics for a lover to put into words the way she feels. “You know the words you want to say; it’s in your touch and on your face,” Vaden Todd Lewis sings over the heavy riff.
Lead single “Broke Down Stupid” is the album’s most dynamic track, shifting in tempo, loudness, and intensity in the transition from verse to chorus. Lewis softly apologizes for drunken behavior over mid-tempo palm-muted chords. As Mark Reznicek’s thumping drums and Lewis and Clark Vogeler’s powerful guitars explode into the track at the chorus, Lewis’s voice becomes a full-throated howl. “And I hang my head out the window, watch the pavement spinning past my face,” he sings. “I wonder if I woke up on your pillow. Would my head feel this way?”
After a solid start to the album, two weak songs – including an uninspired cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell On You – start to derail the album in the final quarter. The album is then salvaged by the fiery start-and-stop riffing of “Sentimental.”
Toadies have always been one of alternative rock’s underdogs, putting out great music without much support, including a dispute with their label that refused to release Feeler in 1997 or promote Hell Below/Stars Above in 2001. Though The Lower Side of Uptown doesn’t have quite the same raw power and kinetic energy as vintage Toadies releases, it is a return to dynamic, riff-heavy alternative music as a time when the industry needs more.
