Toy Maker

There's A Ghost In These Walls [Cassingle] (2015)

Kelly D

You don’t snuggle with Toy Maker, you strap yourself in and feel the Gs. There's A Ghost In These Walls by Victoria, British Columbia’s Toy Maker, perhaps best described as the illegitimate love child of Defeater and American Football, is definite listen for fans of Triple Crown Record’s bands, such as Tiny Moving Parts and (pre-Albatross) Foxing, or perhaps early This Town Needs Guns. The four piece band incorporates the more mathy, melodic, and emotive elements of the aforementioned bands, while incorporating other sounds from hardcore punk that are evident in the vocal delivery and drumming on this EP.

“Apartment 4” begins with mid-tempo jams before quickly moving into a really tight rhythmic section that alternates between 7/8 and 4/4. The track eventually pulls backs to some clean finger tapping guitars and vocals before the rhythm section joins back in to complete the sound. A subsequent crescendo, in which the vocalist David Goertze says “Do you think you’d forgive me for what I’ve done?/ Do you think you’ll forgive me for what I’m about do?”, eventually explodes back into mid-tempo jams where he confesses “I had to break your heart for me to make something worth writing down/ I guess that’s just art and I’m falling out of love”. The gang vocals accompanying this song are a nice touch and create a real sense of urgency.

The intro to “Medana Court” starts in 5/4 and, instrumentally, reminds me of La Dispute’s “First Reactions After Falling Through the Ice”. The track then moves into a 3/4 part with some nice rhythmic interplay between guitar and bass/drums; the drumming here is noticeably well done and really drives the song forward. Eventually, the song slows down before building up into gang vocals that make the listener want to sing along with the band and yell “All alone on the side of the road/Please don’t take me home”.

There’s a little bit of everything for everyone on this record – changing/odd time signatures, bright bass tones, twinkly/finger tapping guitars, double bass drums, emo lyrics and gang vocals. In terms of song structure, Toy maker does a very good job at re-purposing similar melodic themes throughout their songs while still avoiding traditional verse/chorus structures. The contrast between melody and dissonance on this EP is quite interesting and leaves the listener wanting more than just two songs. For their first EP that incorporates a variety of sounds, it will interesting to see how Toy Maker continues to craft their art moving forward.