Toupe
Chat LP
When Toupe sent us this record, they made quite a point of including all the lyrics. Far from being a substitute for proper annunciation (you can hear every ‘fuck’), this is because the words are incredibly important to the band.
Indeed, things are very topical and cover subjects such as racism, personal injury claims, religion and… Well… Big boobs.
It’s the juxtaposition of these serious subjects with humourous cheek-tonguing that makes Chat so appealing, right from the crooning, piano-led opener, ‘The Thermodynamics of Hell’.
Long-standing Toupe fans will have to wait for the third track, ‘Big Ones’ before that familiar Toupe groove kicks in, but there’s plenty more where that came from! Brand-new-classics include the tuneful ‘The Science of Stuff’, ‘White Russians’ and the stand-up jibing ‘Yo Mamma’.
‘Haircutz’ launches a scathing, but light-hearted (I think) attack on the bands with cool haircuts, suggesting they spend more time at the salon than they do writing songs. I’m sure they haven’t got anyone in particular in mind, but after listening to the fuzzy lo-fi interpretation of the song, I certainly do.
Many of the tracks on Chat are arranged loosely into pairs, with ‘Yo Mamma’ finding a reprise later in the album, ‘You Fell’ getting the magical-mystery-tour treatment in the chaos of ‘Terms and Conditions’ and the genius (and certainly not accidental) pairing of ‘Join the BNP’ and ‘The International Anthem’.
The first of this couple describes the plan to sign us all up to the British National Party to get a majority vote for a change of name. The newly titled “Be Nice People” would presumably be delighted to join in with the non-lingual ‘International Anthem’ of noises, shouts and (appropriately enough) laughter.
The amazing thing about Toupe is that, despite laying down another fine album, they’re already planning the next one (presumably codenamed ‘Project D’).
Chat is a record that will score highly with fans of Burgers and demonstrates enough musical evolution to remain a distinct work in its own right. They had to travel across America to write it, but it was worth the effort!
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Written by Fenton on
