Warming - Toil Boy
Self-Released
Released on March 15th, 2024
“I feel real good / I’m three drinks in / and it feels like I’m born to win.” The upbeat first track from Toil Boy, “Hey Champ :),” flashes a playful crooked bracket smile at listeners as it questions what it means to “be a champion.”
Warming—the musical brainchild of Winnipeg musician-composer Brady Allard—put out a self-titled album in 2019 and now follows up with this second full-length release. First impressions (see lyrics above) of the album transport listeners into a swirling nightlife alight with snapshots of triumph and mishap, while deeper listens reveal a commentary rare in music as danceable as many of these tracks are.
The songs frequently evoke reminiscences of classic indie influences; “Sacred and Divine,” a skipping 6/8 tune dwelling on themes of injustice and mercy, brings to mind the sombre grandiosity of early Arcade Fire, while “Champagne Pour Les Quelques-Uns” wouldn’t feel out of place on Spotify’s “Indie Sleaze” playlist, and “Mr. Tumbling Down” harkens to the gentle synth jubilance of bands like Postal Service.
I was ready to look for a metaphor in the understatedly catchy latter tune—perhaps representing the “tumbling” of its protagonist into a low phase of life—but the song so aptly captures the dismay of realizing the too-drunk guy at the party is still going to be in your house in eight hours that I was content to enjoy it at face value. One can hear the cringe in the voice of a resigned host: “I guess you’re gonna plan to stay.” Exposed here, perhaps, is the embarrassed underbelly of our ironically grinning colon-eyed Champ … :(
“Blue,” a particular highlight on an album laden with strong songs, beseeches a lost subject to return to a strayed-from path before it’s too late. Narrated by an either sincere or sinister “us,” the ominous implication of the tune’s plea (“Trust us for god sakes we’re flesh and blood”) is never quite lost amid airy guitars and a buoyant electronic beat.
This interweaving of light textures with serious lyrical content is recurrent; the interplay of intimate house-show confessions over dreamy synthtronica has an effect both energizing and occasionally haunting, as in “Merry-Go-Round,”—“Hung up on the news today / merry-go-round, merry-go-round …” Ah, the emotional fair ride that is being a human conscientious or obligation-bound enough to maintain awareness of the world outside their bedroom.
One of the album’s great strengths is its skillfully crafted synth sounds, which abound in layers that span from shimmery and ethereal to bold and melodic, without breaching the sonic barrier into gaudiness or ostentation. The blend between electronic instruments and guitars is careful and effective, from melodies volleyed back and forth in “Isn’t it Fine,” to slide guitar sailing over spacious pads in the eleven o’clock number “Talkin’s for the Birds,” whose chiptune lullaby outro guides us into the closer, “Email.”
Indeed, Toil Boy is an album for listeners who like sounds—sounds that conjure a world of synthpop glamour, juxtaposed with lyrics that seem to strip away the fanciful masks worn by denizens of this alluring landscape—the mask of three-drinks-in; the mask of false virtue; the mask of “I hope this email finds you well …”
The release show was lamented to be Warming’s last, but a few of its numerous attendees whisperingly enquired of each other: “Didn’t they say they about the last one? No, the one before?” None of us could remember; it’s all such a blur. We could only enjoy the show, hoping the latest farewell is cheeky marketing and congratulating ourselves for being there, like total champs :)
- Ava Glendinning