Return of Toadies

Admit it. Everyone thought they disappeared. \nSix years after the platinum-selling debut Rubberneck and with many movie soundtrack songs in between, the Texas-based Toadies did it again. They produced an album that just screams "Toadies."\nSome bands just have their own sound. Eddie Vedder and 311 have it. So do Green Day and Cake. It's that impenetrable unique sound that gives the band its personality. The Toadies have it from their energy-driven guitars to their intense vocals.\nRejecting the tendency of many modern rockers to abandon their roots, the Toadies ripped an album of Rubberneck-esque howls, insights and volume. \nOpening with a scream, Hell Below/Stars Above brings the boys and girl back for more of the same with a little added maturity. Although still angst-ridden, some of the hopelessness seems to be gone. More than half a decade can do that to you.\nThroughout 12 tracks, the Toadies put out a heavy-layered sound without losing the ferocity of a live show. \nTodd Lewis, vocalist and guitarist, agrees.\n"With this one, we were open to have more harmonies and overdubs to make it a little more lush and produced, without sacrificing the immediacy of the live thing," says Lewis on the band's Web site. \nAnd lush it is. Trading levels of force, the guitars and vocals share the Toadies necessary insecurity and vengeance.\nLyrics from this album show a bit more resolve than Rubberneck's pitying cries on songs such as "Backslider" and its hit, "Possum Kingdom." Yet they still possess the same honesty and disbelief.\nI guess I left myself wide open, sings Lewis on the album's first single, "Push the Hand." Other songs deal with the Toadie-familiar topics, like sin and women, with cleverness. \nIn a world of mediocrity, here is something new worth listening to. Welcome back Toadies.