Toner Low belong in a rare echelon of stoner idolatry. At a time when the turn-of-the-century underground was beginning to expand, the Leiden, Netherlands, outfit’s 2005 self-titled debut (discussed here) can only be called prescient in its volume, tone, riff and weed worship, and at a time when stoner rock anything wanted to be called anything but stoner rock, there was never any mistaking where Toner Low — the trio of guitarist/vocalist Daan, bassist Miranda and drummer Jack — were coming from, and the I-use-drugs shame residual from the 1990s evaporated in the cloud of their lumbering, doom-infused roll.

Sound-wise, one might liken them most to Canada’s Sons of Otis, who beginning the mid-/late-1990s pushed through their own hazy ultra-thick grooves (and are still going, as is Toner Low), but here too Toner Low distinguish themselves. The trio’s second album, called simply II, was released in 2008, 10 years after the band first got together. It is comprised of four songs, numbered “One” (11:06), “Two” (14:03), “Five” (13:34) and “Three” (18:59), and though its cover art might give a darker impression than that of the first record, which blazes with a charmingly Dutch orange out front, the material included is no less colorful. The band set an initial bed of feedback and drone for an intro at the start of “One,” then let go to silence before the song begins in earnest. Immediately the effect is one of immersion and heavy-landing groove. They announce their coming. It doesn’t need to be a secret, and with such rumble of low end beneath it, it wouldn’t be anyway.

Tonally, II feels post-Dopesmoker in its density, but has fewer rough edges production-wise and uses its space for a current of effects running alongside the riffs. A slowdown about five minutes in leads gradually into a ‘verse,’ but it’s a couple more minutes before they get there and that’s just fine. If you’re in a hurry, look elsewhere. A tempo and volume pickup follows in minute-nine, and they bash-crash with Echoplex-esque noises peppered in headed toward the next slowdown, which brings them to the ending, which lasts about a minute. They’re just working with a different conception of time, that’s all. No biggie. Unless you count the tones, the runtimes and the weedian presence; all of those are, in fact, biggies.

“Two” builds up at the start, but quicker, and feels more immediate with Jack‘s tom hits behind the guitar/bass intro. This section goes for about four minutes, at which point the song devolves into noise and minimalist ambience, that in turn becoming the bed for a section of maybe-saxophone that eventually morphs into a low-key march as they approach the seven-minute mark. A kick-in is waiting, with a kind of harsher atmospheric growl over top, and a gruelingly righteous snail’s-pace nod persists until the horn (or flute of some sort) comes back at the end. There isn’t really an outward challenge to it — that is, nothing is too angry or grating or confrontational — but for sure there’s a stoner gauntlet being thrown down, and there weren’t many other acts one can think of in 2008 who’d pick it up.

At the end of its unfolding, “Five” gives over to residual noise and a sampled rainstorm, and that does set something of a melancholic mood coming off the droney lurch before it, the sense of sway palpable in the live-sounding crash after they’ve moved through the initial buildup and into the song-proper, before the drums and bass drop out to establish the more open, rolling riff that follows. In the midsection, effects-laced feedback gives a synthy impression before the push renews, more active in the drums en route to said finish, and as you’ll surely be hypnotized and/or numbed up by then, the snap-back to the full brunt of Toner Low‘s lurch will surely do the trick. Vocals are blown out but provide a loosely human presence regardless, and “Five” hits a level of heavy that in this era was largely reserved for Ufomammut and other cosmically-minded crushers. That the last two-plus minutes are spent in residual noise feels earned.

This leaves “Three,” the closer, largely in a place of its own. Bass and drums start out with a chug, there are lines either sampled or spoken, and soon enough (three minutes later), the song brings its guitar level up and crashes into a surprising shove before laying out the pattern to be followed in the central riff. Noise and feedback and samples become part of the pastiche, but the heft holds firm through the first half of the song until about seven minutes in when the guitar and manifold skronk cut out to let the drums and odds-and-ends noises have the room. What’s pivotal is there’s still movement.

When the song inevitably picks up, it’s certainly no less weighted for the few moments spent not burying you in distortion, but even after so much of Toner Low‘s superlative heaviness, they remain impressively heavy on “Three.” Much of the back end of the track is spent in the transition to the feedback that closes — I know, you’re shocked — but this is of course on purpose and part of how II functions; not so much to overwhelm, but to consume just the same. They’ve made the point already, but if you can’t hang with willful repetition and deliberate plod, you’ve probably already stopped listening. I guess maybe there’s that challenge after all. How much, exactly, can you take before you’ve had too much?

Yes, I’m talking about drugs. Also riffs.

II was re-released by Tartarus Records in 2014, and Toner Low by then had already issued their 2013 third album, III (review here), which remains their most recent full-length. I don’t know that there will or won’t ever be another — I never say never in regard, generally — but each of their records is a testament to riffing as ritual, and meditative despite the lack of appropriated Buddhist themes or heady, proggy indulgences. They put it out there. If you can get to their wavelength, you’re one of the lucky ones.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

Holy mackerel, another week. Thanks if you’ve kept up with the Quarterly Review. That wraps up on Monday and then I’ve got premieres slated for the rest of the week. There’s also of course news to catch up on and whatever else. Always.

I’m closing the week later than I’d like as well. I had Hungarian class at noon. It was my fourth class of the week, and I booked it forgetting that I needed to go to the school to give my daughter her meds/food at 12:30 basically because I’m incompetent. So I did the work for class and didn’t really have more than 10 minutes of it, most of which I apologized for being so fucking dumb. Idióta vagyok, one might say.

I’ll hope to pick up tomorrow with writing the Quarterly Review, but I’ve got a little more than an hour before I need to go pick up the kid from school, so I’m going to take that and relax. The Patient Mrs. is in Western Massachusetts for a wedding tonight and won’t be back until tomorrow, so it’s me and The Pecan since yesterday afternoon, and that’s been fine. She played Mario Galaxy for most of yesterday evening. I don’t expect tonight will be much different, except maybe with ice cream involved. My most ambitious plan is to give her a bath tomorrow morning, which she very much needs.

Her school issues persist. Ups and downs in the new classroom. I don’t feel good about it, but that’s familiar at this point.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Don’t let these fuckers tear you down, and you know which fuckers I’m talking about. Stay hydrated, stay grounded, stay in your head. Fuck fascism and its perpetrators and bootlicking sympathizers. Yes, all of them. Free Palestine.

FRM.

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Tags: II, Leiden, The Netherlands, Toner Low, Toner Low II

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2025 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.