Toe - The Book About My Idle Plot on a Vague Anxiety
Since their formation in 2000, Toe has quietly and unassumingly carved their own little niche in the Japanese instrumental post-rock scene, gaining a reputation as a musician's band with their dynamic, flowing drumming and agile American Football-esque melodies. As longtime mainstays of the Nine Days Wonder-run Catune label, Toe has typically played opener for Japanese post-hardcore heavy-hitters like 9DW and Envy, as well as touring North American groups such as Owen, Pele, The Mercury Program and The Album Leaf. They debuted with the 5-song EP Songs, Ideas We Forgot in 2002 and followed it up with the Re:designed remix CD a year later.
Which brings us to their long-awaited first full length, 2005's wordy The Book About My Idle Plot on a Vague Anxiety. In general, the trademarks of their sound have remained the same; sprightly twin guitar lines twine and arpeggiate over simple basslines while the drums take center stage. Upon listening, it's not too surprising to learn that drummer Kashikura is considered the most popular facet of the band. His drumming is precise and comfortable, free-flowing and restless. Not often will you find a drummer who serves as the main articulation of a band's music, especially with guitarists as deft as these, and it is a testament to Kashikura's skill that he rises to the task so well.
Toe's earlier output often found them adorning typically poppy emo melodies with a sense of quirkiness and unpredictability. On The Book About My Idle Plot the brighter aspects have been toned down in favor of more pensive, melancholy material. Aside from a re-recorded version of an older track "Past and Language," only the sunny "I Do Still Wrong" retains the fun vibrancy that infused older Toe songs. In fact, stylistically they seem to be mining an older mid-90s emo sound with its dark minor key melodies for inspiration, especially on the pounding, explosive closer "Everything Means Nothing" and the jumpy intro of "C." Even the very minimal vocal touches scattered about the album scream "emo": faint background shrieks (a classic emo trick) pierce the end of "Kodoku no Hatsumei" and pop up again in "I Do Still Wrong."
Of course, with post-rock there are dangers that come with the territory. The chief difficulty, especially with bands of the instrumental type, is maintaining listener interest. Toe at least has the advantage of an active sound, but they stumble on variety. Experiments in additional instrumentation are minimal, and despite the obvious talent of the players, Toe eschews the shifting rhythms and stop-on-a-dime changes of math rock, preferring to stick with a single tempo and style for the duration of each song. Devoid of any real musical shake-ups, this can create the impression that the album is just a repetitive series of strictly-structured jams with constant jazzy drum filling, so listener enjoyment will likely hinge on how much they enjoy the formula. But discussion of song structures aside, it is hard to deny that what Toe do, they do with zest and panache, and it is this resolve that has earned them the space they occupy in Japanese post-rock.