Album Review: Toad Venom, EAT!
Posted in Reviews on June 24th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The original intention of Sweden’s Toad Venom was to remain anonymous, but in the words of the band themselves, “it didn’t work.” The project, in fact, was founded circa 2021 at the behest of Kalle “Ian Venom” Lilja (also Wolves in Haze and Långfinger) and Mikael “Tord Venom” Backendal (JIRM), who anchor the alternatingly foggy and sunshiny psych-pop rock purposes of Toad Venom‘s debut album, EAT!. And usually it’s Lilja (who also recorded and mixed; Esben Willems mastered and Martin Björk is credited as producer) drumming and Backendal (who did the art) playing guitar, but they switch around as well, with Lilja adding guitar and bass to “Three Hearts” while Backendal plays percussion, both adding synth to the early instrumental “Fraggelgaggel,” and so on, their recording and engineering experience making the studio no less of an instrument throughout than the various guitar, bass, keys, synth, percussion, philicorda, and so on they employ throughout, never mind the other players brought in.
Delivered through the band’s own studio-affiliated imprint, Welfare Sounds, the album employs a host of vocalists, notably Cornelia “Virginia Venom” Adamsson (also Virginia and the Flood), who appears on opener “Grip of a Vice” and brings a more than respectable Blondie vibe to the dreamy “Three Hearts,” immediately following. Adamsson, in fronting the first two of the 10 total tracks on the 41-minute offering, helps set the tone of mindful, structured drift in which much of the album resides, a modern sheen looking back on and reimagining ’60s acid pop as Patrik “John Lennon Venom” Kolar (also Weeping Willows) makes no attempt to hide the primary inspiration for the piano progression that starts “Grip of a Vice” — the first thing on the record you hear is piano and it’s a pleasant surprise — and the Mellotron that joins later.
“Grip of a Vice” is originally by Inventors of the Universe and is one of three covers here, as Toad Venom also take on The Electric Flag‘s “Peter’s Trip” and Serge Gainsbourg‘s “Laisse Tomber les Filles” back to back as the album makes its way into its midsection following the Devoian “Fraggelgaggel” and the six-minute joy-piece “Calling All the Creatures,” which aligns Backendal and Lilja with vocalist Ester “June Venom” Nannmark, who adds a mellow, melodic spirit to the track that could easily be called modern indie instead of classic psych but that makes the first of only two six-minute tracks on EAT! — the other is the penultimate “Deadless Time” — an absolute highlight and immersive in a way that “Grip of a Vice” and “Three Hearts” didn’t seem to want to be, favoring instead that classic pop mindset.
Wait. Is it possible Toad Venom want to do more than one thing? Actually it’s kind of the point of the record. On the most basic level, it’s kind of the point of the band, with Lilja and Backendal each stepping aside from other bands to make these songs, but also in bringing in so many other players — Karl “Torsten Venom” Apelmo of JIRM and Jessica “Vera Venom” Mengarelli of The Presolar Sands on backing vocals for “Three Hearts,” bassist Per “Steel Venom” Stålberg of Division of Laura Lee on “Fraggelgaggel,” Kolar on the opener and the final three tracks adding Mellotron, vibraphone early, Hammond and Wurlitzer on “Swirling Hands” (video premiere here) or “Deadless Time,” helping add to the languid garage psych of closer “When They Leave,” on which Hanna “Nommnomm Venom” Samara tops the subtly weighted progression with a suitably lysergic melody.
So yes, the songs have different goals. The siren of guitar on “Peter’s Trip” and Mengarelli‘s suitably ‘tombling’ delivery of “Laisse Tomber les Filles” speak to that well enough to make the point, and neither of those are originals. From employing artists outside the core unit of the band — or, perhaps, not having a core unit beyond Lilja and Backendal in the first place — to the actual shifts that take place throughout like “Alla är likadana” bringing in Charly “Vulva Venom” Paulin of The Presolar Sands for a shoutier, proto-punk verse made gleefully weird in an almost cult rock kind of way by the synth behind it, or the way Mengarelli‘s final appearance as Vera on “Swirling Hands” seems to be struggling to stay atop the wash of melody around, to the all-hands-on-deck, whistle-and-trumpet-inclusive spaghetti Western Morricone-ism in “Deadless Time,” which doesn’t introduce its Tilde “Wild Venom” Hjelm-vocalized verse until the second half of the song, establishing first a deceptively tense chug of who knows how many layers of guitar.
This confusing swap of players — it’s Daniel “Danne Venom” Ekborg on trumpet and Teodor “Telos Venom” Boogh (also Telos Vision, Truls Mörck) on the guitar solo for “Deadless Time,” by the way — and switching between different kinds of vintage synths and keys and who knows what else, is a mess. There’s no other way to say it. On paper at very least, it’s a mess. And in listening terms, it shouldn’t work. At all. It’s nearly impossible to know who’s where around Backendal and Lilja throughout, or to keep track of the comings and goings between singers and styles. By the simple math, the album should be a disjointed collection more about the self-indulgence of its makers than the listening experience of its audience.
But the horrifying truth of EAT! is that it does work, and that it’s in serving that very listening experience that the material is most united. The album’s 41 minutes pass in a breeze of sweetheart reverie, fluid one to the next and able to build momentum across the whole. The songs’ unabashed poppiness and accessibility provide a grounding effect that renders all the change surrounding not at all meaningless, but a part of the expression of the songs themselves, which in turn serve as the foundation for the record. They might and do vary in purpose and touch on different aesthetics, certainly on different instrumentation and a sense of the experimental, but the ultimate mission of Toad Venom is to build these songs into something memorable in their own right, and if Lilja and Backendal — one might be inclined to include Kolar in that list as well; I don’t know how involved he was in the writing, but his contributions throughout are pivotal — draw this too from a classic ethic of psychedelic rock of the mid and late ’60s, they’re headed in the right direction. If you want to make sense of nonsense, you need to expand your mind.
Whatever this project turns into, whether it remains as nebulous in makeup as it is here around Lilja and Backendal or becomes a band with either Adamsson or Mengarelli on vocals (or someone else), Kolar on keys, and so on, as part of a permanent lineup, the songwriting and the creativity and the cohesion of purpose across EAT! are not to be underestimated. They might have considered calling it ‘feast’ instead.
