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Gazing at Toad the Wet Sprocket’s New Constellation

In my memory of 1993, four albums stand out as the essential soundtrack: R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend, dada’s Puzzle, and Toad the Wet Sprocket’s fear. (Anti-capitalization was apparently a big thing in 1993.) I would play my cassettes of those albums over and over on my Walkman as I rode the bus or walked to school; the CDs had a priority spot on my CD tower. If you could find the DNA of my musical taste, you’d probably see those four albums smack at the center. I followed all four artists through the ’90s and into the 21st century.

Well, in Toad’s case, I had to follow the band’s component parts into the 21st century, because the band broke up in 1998. Lead singer Glen Phillips started a solo career and did a number of side projects with other musicians. (Way back in the early days of Not News, we even had a thread on our forum about his work.) Guitarist/singer Todd Nichols started a new band called Lapdog, at first with Toad bassist Dean Dinning and then with Toad drummer Randy Guss. The four have reunited for concerts numerous times over the years, and released a compilation of re-recorded versions of a lot of their most popular songs. But there hasn’t been a full new album from the band since 1997’s Coil.

Until now.

The group decided that they were ready to write and record new material together, so they started putting together an album. They also decided they wanted to stay independent, so they would try to use Kickstarter to raise money to promote the album that they planned to release in September.

They started the campaign in early June, and backers over a certain level were promised an early download of the album when the Kickstarter met its goal, which the band expected/hoped would happen in early August.

Instead, it happened in roughly 36 hours.

So it took a couple of weeks before the band could get everything together and send out codes to download New Constellation, but in the end they delivered. And in the week that I’ve been listening to the album, I can definitely say that I got my money’s worth. I had already been streaming the title track and lead single for a few weeks, in part because its energy and exuberance were very helpful in getting me through to the end of the school year. “Get What You Want” and “Is There Anyone Out There” have a similar up-tempo catchy energy.

Many of the songs are slower, lending support for the introspection and contemplation of the lyrics. It seems like a recurring thread in Toad songs is our inability to get out of our own way. That’s a feeling I can definitely relate to, so when those lyrics get matched up with the right piece of music, it’s a beautiful thing. “The Moment” is a great example of this; I really appreciate Phillips’ reminder that “for every door you don’t kick open there’s a million more to try,” even if I sometimes mourn the truth that “for every path you follow there’s another left behind.”

There’s still time to support the Kickstarter and get the album early, along with four bonus tracks. These are definitely not throwaways; the tracks are just as good as the 11 that made the “regular” album. I particularly like “I’m Not Waiting,” with lead vocals from Nichols. And back to that theme of getting out of your own way, the deluxe edition closes out with Toad’s version of “Finally Fading,” a song from Phillips’ solo album Winter Pays for Summer. When the chorus hits, and Nichols’ and Phillips’ guitars are playing off each other as Dinning, Nichols, and Phillips sing that “the voices trailing doubt are finally fading out,” I can’t help but cheer.

Welcome back, Toad. Hope you stick around for a while.

About

Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.

July 2, 2013 @ 3:29 pm
Culture and Media

4 Comments

  1. Ping from Jenny:
    Wednesday, July 3rd 2013 at 6:05 am | 

    I cannot describe how much you just made my day with this. I completely missed that they had gotten back together to do a new album. Wow. I had to head to Kickstarter before I could even leave a comment here.

    Back in ’93 I was in college and they performed there on their tour. We didn’t know enough to get tickets before they were sold out, sadly. But our dorm was right behind the student center so after the concert my boyfriend hung out and invited the various band members in for a drink. They all passed, except Glen Phillips. He came in and hung out for half an hour or more. I was a music major so we talked a lot about music. But also about his girlfriend and the tour and such. I don’t know what compelled him to come in and hang out with us, but it was delightful.

  2. Ping from Dave Thomer:
    Wednesday, July 3rd 2013 at 8:24 am | 

    That’s a great story. I saw Phillips as a solo act twice in the early ’00s, and he seemed like a ridiculously nice guy. Definitely a storyteller.

    I’m glad I could tip you off about the new album. It’s definitely made my day a few times already.

  3. Ping from Chris:
    Wednesday, July 3rd 2013 at 1:53 pm | 

    You definitely have a kindred spirit here. R.E.M. (especially Document through Automatic) was definitely the sound track to my late high school/college life. But if I had to pick one CD that really defined that first semester of college, it was definitely Toad’s “Pale”. I got it from a friend and will freely admit that in my need to latch on to anything that fit the “alternative” rock music that I was really getting into at the time, really was more attracted by the fact that the name just sounded weird…but once I played it I was completely blown away and remain a huge fan of their music today.

    Got my download codes today, so have just started listening to it. So far, I really like what I’m hearing. I don’t think I’ll ever love it (or any music) the way I did those earlier albums, but I guess that’s true of anyone that is in their 40’s looking back on things they loved when they were 17/18. Still, feels much like how I felt when I listened to R.E.M.’s “Collapse Into Now”…..like saying hi to a good friend that you haven’t seen in a long time.

    • Ping from Dave Thomer:
      Wednesday, July 3rd 2013 at 2:32 pm | 

      The guy who told me I should check out Toad was a big, big fan of Pale. He definitely liked it more than fear, which was out by then but had mostly escaped my radar. I like it a lot, but these days I need to be in a certain mood to listen to it. The B-side to the Walk on the Ocean single was a big favorite of mine, too. I was glad when Toad put out a compilation with all of those soundtrack cuts and B-sides.

      I agree with you, when you build up 20 years of history with an album, it’s hard for anything to come along and measure up. But 10 years from now, I may have a large number of memories built up around Uberlin from Collapse Into Now or The Moment from this album. So I guess we’ll have to revisit this then. 🙂