TOY Overwhelms BRUSSELS With Monumental Streams Of Psychedelic Waves…

TOY – Witlof Bar (Botanique), Brussels – 22 February 2019

Last month Brighton‘s psychedelic pop collective TOY released their glowing, critically acclaimed, 4th LP HAPPY IN THE HOLLOW. Their most engrossing achievement so far. The amazing thing about this band is that you can enjoy them in two truly different ways. On record, their songs have an overall atmospheric, bluesy and mind-exploring resonance and are best experienced on your headphones, late at night with the lights out and the world asleep. On stage the whole Toy dynamic changes drastically. The decibels go up
(way up actually), the intensity rises to an overwhelming level, the motorik drum/bass beats speed up your bloodstream and the intoxicating streams of hallucinatory waves touch you really physically.

Yes, every nerve and every muscle in your whole body moves in overdrive, especially when they switch to exhilarating jam modus on their classic oldies ‘Join The Dots’, ‘Motoring’ and most of all the monumental ‘Dead And Gone’, but the trance-like treatment works perfectly too for the steamy rippers ‘Jolt Awake‘, ‘Mechanism’ and ‘Energy’ off the new LP. During their more relaxed twilight meditations (‘Mistake A Stranger‘, ‘The Willo‘ and ‘Last Warmth Of The Day‘) you could catch your breath again but to be honest, every time they slowed down
I (and the crowd) couldn’t hardly wait to get the next electro Krautrock shock, to absorb the next guitars charged crescendo extravaganza and to lose ourself in the next glorious cacophony. Third time I saw TOY! Third time they nailed it and my ears still buzzing 15 hours later are proof of that! Memorable performance!

Dazzling out-of-body experience…