Band:	Toby Driver
Album:	Madonnawhore
Style:	Experimental
Release date:	April 21, 2017
A review by:	RaduP

01. The Scarlet Whore - Her Dealings With The Initiate
02. Avignon
03. The Deepest Hole
04. Parsifal
05. Craven's Dawn
06. Boys On The Hill

Toby Driver has been expressing his eclectic and eccentric songwriting skills for about two decades in bands such as Kayo Dot and Maudlin Of The Well, and while he has dipped into solo territory before, this is truly his first proper solo record. What did we get?

Maddonawhore was announced as an all-ballad solo record of traditional songwriting. In theory, this sounds like a huge step away from all the avant-garde metal, the electronic, and the chamber approaches he's had, and while he has had ballads in some of his albums, traditional songwriting could be a red flag. Worry not; this plays to the album's strengths.

The sound is much more stripped-back and the songwriting is indeed much more traditional, bringing this closest to a singer/songwriter or slowcore album that Toby has ever gotten so far. The approach lets all the dreamy art pop touches of previous records really shine, with sparse drumming, spacing synths, reverb-full guitars and very emotional vocals. The instrumentation is quite minimal, with Toby playing most of the instruments, sans the drums, played by Keith Abrams. Instead of focusing on writing complex structures, it is focused on immersing us in this dreamy, almost tranquil state. This is indeed a very soothing, quiet album, placing great emphasis on maintaining this state, even through more uncanny atmospheres on "The Deepest Hole".

Loosely conceptual, the album's title refers to a Freudian concept of a heterosexual man who sees women as dichotomic, as either pure saints or degraded thots, and thus is unable to feel both romantic and sexual love. This concept is mostly reflected in some of the lyrics, most of which were written by Jason Byron, although not that much in the music. There are no feeling of frustration or discontent, instead being mostly awe-inspiring, forlorn and hypnotizing.

Float in the album's drowned-in-reverb sound here.