Toby Driver - Raven, I Know That You Can Give Me Anything review
| Band: | Toby Driver |
| Album: | Raven, I Know That You Can Give Me Anything |
| Style: | Experimental |
| Release date: | September 20, 2024 |
| A review by: | RaduP |
01. Ticking Timebomb
02. Someday There'll Be An Avalanche
03. Antinous In The Nile
04. Transdimensional Alluvium
05. Raven, I Know That You Can Give Me Anything
06. Shankha
07. Talismans To Keep Me
What is it with prog guys and ravens? Can Toby Driver make the raven sing?
The last time we caught up with Toby Driver, Kayo Dot had released their latest album, Moss Grew On The Swords And Plowshares Alike, an album that proved that Toby's music continues to baffle us, as did the previous one. Though his more metal projects like Kayo Dot and its sort of predecessor Maudlin Of The Well are the ones that are most relevant for our website, Toby's contributions go beyond that quite a lot. Just this year he's also played on a Bloodmist and an Extra Life record, as well as putting out an album under the Alora Crucible name. That's music that spans genres like experimental rock, dark ambient, IDM, new age, among others.
The man's prolific nature out of the way, this isn't the first time I've covered the solo music he put out using his own name. When I got onboarded as a writer in late 2017, I was able to pull some of my favorite releases from earlier in the year for a review, I plucked Madonnawhore, and back then I used to give ratings, quite inflated ones if I'm honest, which might explain why I've stopped doing that, but the 9.0 I have that one is indicative of the fact that whatever that album did really really worked for me. I dropped rating by the time I reviewed its follow-up one year later, and They Are The Shield was a change of pace mostly because of the huge presence of violin. Now, six years later, there's a new solo Toby Driver record, once again aiming for a ballad-like album akin to the Madonnawhore one I liked so much. Logic would dictate that I would like Raven, I Know That You Can Give Me Anything at least about as much.
My first listen was not as much baffling but somewhat impression-less. That can happen with listener fatigue, so I persevered, and now I think I can pinpoint two reasons why this didn't have as big of a positive impact. First: the magic can't work as well the second time around. By doing the sound of Madonnawhore, which itself was pretty close to other albums like Plastic House On Base Of Sky, meant diminishing returns unless something was fundamentally changed. Second, I hated the "to assume to assume" part in "Antinous In The Nile", something that broke the immersive magic that is needed for such a slow vibe-based album, and a track I'd gladly skip on each listen. There's also "Someday There'll Be An Avalanche" that sounds like a blend of the usual floating atmospheric rock and a proper 60s soft rock ballad, which sounds pretty good and offers some variety, but has a sense of cheesiness that doesn't exactly gel well with the rest of the record.
It's a bit of a shame that a record that's not even 40 minutes in runtime has nearly 10 minutes I feel like skipping, while the other 30 feel too close to an album I already like. But it's generally the latter that I felt drawn to most. My favorite tracks bookend the record, and Toby had the courtesy of putting the two skippable tracks consecutively, so it was possible for me to curate tracks from this record that would allow me to drown in the gorgeous soundscapes of the record, minimal as they are in progression and instrumental palette, and remind myself of why I liked Madonnawhore so much in the first place.
 | Written on 28.10.2024 by Doesn't matter that much to me if you agree with me, as long as you checked the album out. |
Comments
Comments: 2
Visited by: 7 users
| ScreamingSteelUS Editor-in-Chief Admin Posts: 5920  |
What he's saying in "Antinous in the Nile" is "too soon", so it's "It's a shame when your lover dies too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon, too soon." Funny you mentioned that it brought you out of your immersion in the album, because I was enjoying this in the background and then that part got so annoying that I flipped over here to see whether you addressed it in your review. I wasn't totally sold on the song right away but that really drove it from awkward to comically lugubrious. From that point on, the spell was broken and I couldn't look past how much his voice and the half-nonsensical/half-annoying lyrics stuck out over the music. I made the same Steven Wilson connection from the title and so I was expecting something similar for that reason alone, and that expectation was fulfilled occasionally by the ambient prog feeling this sometimes has, but ultimately the parts I enjoyed I didn't enjoy enough to make me curious about his other work and more often I found it too reminiscent of Witchcraft's Black Metal (although not nearly as awful).
---- "Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader I'm the Agent of Steel.
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| RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff Posts: 9015  |
Written by ScreamingSteelUS on 08.11.2024 at 16:13 Thank God I'm not the only one who hated that part. I do recommend giving this another listen but with "Someday There'll Be An Avalanche" and "Antinous In The Nile" out of the setlist. Or better yet, just listen to Madonnawhore or Plastic House On Base Of Sky.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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