The Toadies have never been critic’s darlings but maintain a strong fan base and make some of the most interesting hard rock you will find. The hard rock genre is boring and filled with bands that are still copying Nirvana 20 years later. It is one of the blandest genres of music there is.

The Toadies step out of this group to actually make interesting music. They manage to play loud without falling into the same boring patterns as many of the popular bands that are lumped in the same category. For their fifth album Play.Rock.Music they strip away the desire to write “Possum Kingdom” again and put together another solid album.

The lead single “Summer of the Strange” is a strong representation of the album. It is straight forward guitar heavy rock song topped with Vaden Todd Lewis’ snarly vocals. While the band does add a couple slower songs in “Magic Bullet” and “The Appeal” the album is still the riff heavy 40 minutes fans would expect. The album’s highlights are the very typical sounding Toadies songs like “Rattler’s Revival” and “Animals.” The most interesting songs however are a little different for the band’s sound. On “Laments of a Good Man” the band pairs a death metal/punk sound with a slow chorus that gives the song a tension that makes it a track you’ll keep coming back to. They also summon their Texas roots on “We Burned The City Down” making it one of the catchiest songs on the record.

Key Tracks: “Laments of a Good Man” “We Burned The City Down” “Summer of the Strange”