Tom Toxic und die Poison Jerrys have only been on the scene for a short while, but have already secured support slots with such titans of the scene as the Guanabatz and Demented Are Go as well as appearances at the Psychobilly Freakout and the German leg of Psychobilly Kicks back. So the question is: is the band any good? 

The LP begins with a lovely rockabilly riff before the slap bass and drums kick in, before finally the vocals come in with ‘Tonight’s the night’. ‘Freak Out’ really is, rather splendid up tempo neo-rockabilly.

Second song, ‘I Wear Black’ has a country feel to it and is very tuneful with a lovely guitar solo. It is well-recorded.

The bluesy version of ‘Dirty Old Town’ grooves along quite nicely with a good solo, Tom’s vocals are on the edge here.

With mouth organ accompanying a sort of country blues, ‘push your pedal to the metal’, ‘Worn Out Shoes’ is quite a good song!

‘Thumb Down’: A train-shuffle begins this rather good up-tempo rocker with nice slap bass work throughout. The vocals and the backing vocals work well on this frenetic number.

‘I Don’t Wanna’ starts with a double bass run and the guitar drops out at numerous points to reveal just slapping bass and drums having said this there is a very nice guitar solo and vocal performance on this neo-rockabilly number.

‘Invisible Man’ comes perhaps closest to being psychobilly, not just in terms of song title but also in terms of song structure.

‘Real Friendship’ begins a little like Iggy Pop’s ‘The Passenger’ and then displays some Mad Sin stylings ‘When I Call You My Friend’ features very tuneful guitar work.

‘Like a (Tardigrade)’ is splendid up tempo neo rockabilly with some great guitar playing over a very effective rhythm section.

With a quick ‘1,2,3,4’ we are into another up-tempo neo-rockabilly song, ‘The Other End of the Highway’ , complete with reggae section two-thirds of the way through the track, with no fewer than three false endings.

This is fun stuff and is played and recorded very well. If your musical palette includes the Polecats and the Dry Tortugas you ought to find plenty to tickle your fancy with Toxic Tom. It certainly gets my seal of approval.

Nick Kemp

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