Todd – Comes To Your House / 2006 Southern / 13 Tracks / http://www.southern.com/southern/band/TODDD/ / http://www.southern.com / Reviewed 21 April 2006
Todd plays a style of metal that is really hard to categorize. Coming through in a furious way for their first full track on “Comes To Your House” in “A Killer Grows Wings”, hints of sludge metal (Kyuss, Fu Manchu) mix well with thrash and even Motorhead to create a tour de force that will rock the soul of listeners in only 100 seconds. “Chair Fight” rides a head-banging groove before moving into a Morbid Angel-like type of metal that will put individuals through the ringer before relinquishing its grip on Todd’s fan base about three minutes from when it started.
The smart use of repetition during this track drives the beat further into listeners’ heads. However noisy and raucous each of the tracks on “Comes To Your House” are, there is still a sense that Todd works under some sort of pop framework. Even when the band moves into something that only individuals into The Locust can love (“Black Skull”), there is something in the interplay between the guitars and drums that reminds individuals of the days of psychedelic rock. Something that seems like Todd’s own contribution to the musical history book is that the band does not play directly to the audience during a song like “The Knife Whisper”. Instead, there is a blocking out of the fans that allows the band to shine in ways that were not previously available to bands.
Couple that with something that sounds like heavy metal spoons (during a song like “Council Member”) and one is left with what just may be the most ambitious metal album to come out in the last fifteen years. Much of “Comes To Your House” has nothing in the way of vocals, but Todd has enough talent collectively as a band that their ability to tell a story is not hindered in the slightest. The emotions and narrative that are created with various sounds and interplay of the band’s instruments means that “Comes To Your House” is a musically svelte album, with enough material to keep individuals interested through multiple plays. When the band does end up singing (as is the case with the title track), Todd actually become a stronger beast in the same way that the additional pieces of Voltron increase the power of the constituent lions. Essentially, this is the album that knocks off Primus’ work as the hardest-working in hard work and metal.
Top Tracks: Don’t Lean on the Shovel, The Knife Whisperer
Rating: 7.2/10
[JMcQ]