Barking Toad

Barking Toad - ?

Genre: Hardcore, Avant-garde, Jazz

For Fans of: Captain Beefheart, Sabbath, Coltrane

Stand Out Track: Big Doom Cunt

Rating: 6

Everything about this EP reads like a bad acid trip, from the artwork through to the music. What this 3 piece from Folkestone do is blend conventional Hardcore riffs and grooves with avant-garde noise and Jazzy moments from the Sax.

Opening track 'Big Doom Cunt' is fairly typical of the darker side of their sound, alienating you with its savage anti harmony approach and could quite possibly be the soundtrack to insanity.

Lighter points in the album like that of track 3 starts to show a more melodic approach in a minimalist Miles Davis fashion. Thus proving that Kye can play the Sax just as well as murdering it though a little more care to vibrato needs to be taken in lighter moments.

For me however, I believe their sound worked much better live. The visual image of the band coupled with their mind-fucking sound seemed to have more impact on a stage, after a few listens it seems to induce a headache.

After track 4 the rest of the CD plays tracks from another Folkestone band; Sleeping Bear. It seems a little unecessary to share digital space with another band especially when each act has such radically different artistic view points.

Barking Toad are brave enough to try something different. Shocked faces aplenty, get down to the Cowley Club on the 29^th (April) and see for yourself.

Underground