Band:	Toby Driver
Album:	They Are The Shield
Style:	Experimental
Release date:	September 21, 2018
A review by:	RaduP

01. Anamnesis Park
02. Glyph
03. 470 Nanometers
04. Scaffold Of Digital Snow
05. Smoke-Scented Mycelium
06. The Knot

If Toby Driver hadn't been the main man of Kayo Dot and Maudlin Of The Well, this piece of music wouldn't be here. There's a certain feeling of pride or delight I feel when I get the opportunity to review a nonmetal album on a metal website, in the same way I feel like talking about metal on websites about other music. It's great seeing people online slowly discovering metal through Deafheaven or Sleep or Burzum. It works the other way around, too.

Toby Driver has a long history with metal. Maudlin Of The Well's My Fruit Psychobells... A Seed Combustible was released almost 20 years ago. But it would be complete nonsense to call Toby a metal musician. Or really any other genre. As he is rather famous for his avant-garde exploration, the stripped-down sound of his first proper solo record, Madonnawhore, was quite surprising. His chameleonic nature is continued on this album as well, not merely emulating the sound of previous works but expanding on what was built. So how is They Are The Shield?

One major thing to notice is the increased presence of the violin, performed by Pauline Kim Harris and Conrad Harris, which fills most of the record with a chamber feeling and interplay with the heavy ambiance delivered by the keyboards. While not heavy in the Sunn O))) sense, there is still a lingering wall of sound to be felt, less crushing and more somber and entrancing. Though most of the music is focused on the interplay between the ambiance and the violins, a great emphasis is placed on the drum performance. Due to it being such a quiet and constrained album, they take less of a rhythmic stance and become way more playful, such that every hit of the drum set feels like it's floating. And obviously it wouldn't be a Toby Driver record without his suave vocals in abundance.

Helped by a list of collaborators whose achievements, if listed, would be longer than the actual review, Toby Driver delivers a very moody, intimate, and almost droning album. Certainly more dynamic and expansive than his previous, but more constrained than his other work, it dwells in the space between Ulver's Shadows Of The Sun, Julia Holter's Have You In My Wilderness, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor's F#A#, with bits of Dead Can Dance and Ólafur Arnalds as well. It's perfectly understandable to find it boring, even if you "get" or even like the previously mentioned, but its emotional impact and dreamy mood are hard not to appreciate.

Ethereal, suave, and strangely uplifting would be a good contrast from that death metal album you just listened to. My intent is not to appear as holier-than-thou or in any way condescending. Maybe you'll find it boring, but maybe, like for me, it will remind you of why you love music. Give it a go.