TOAD is the abbreviation for Take Over And Destroy. This act self-released the EP Rotten Tide in 2012, and this newest effort, Endless Night, was captured at the end of 2012’s Autumn by the same producer / engineer that did that EP, Bob Hoag (at the Flying Blanket Recording studio, also in Arizona). The five-track record lasts for almost half an hour. It stands for a mixture of common / uncommon Death and Black Metal, amplified with different other details, like atmospheric keyboard lines or (NWOB) HM-elements. These ones do not play a leading head role, but are a characteristic part of TOAD’s macabre Metal. The sound is rather strange too: enormously heavy yet still somewhat primitive, strangely groovy, and exhaling the spirit of the eighties / nineties. The different instruments are well-mixed, even though the rhythm section is mainly background-based. It’s a sonic translation of animalistic fear by the Human kind, driven into an atmosphere of pure sinister and obscurity. It’s Horror indeed. And with a track like Endless Night, TOAD also dwell into spheres of Doom Metal.
Overall Endless Night is strange and psychedelic, but intriguing and catching, and it makes me lust for more. In all naivety I am hoping for more material to come - a full length in a very near future?