Phantom Tollbooth Beard of Lightning (off)

Phantom Tollbooth were an Eighties New York band--art-punk and serrated like Meat Puppets, often veering into scattershot avant-garde thrash territory--formed by Dave Rick (Yo La Tengo, B.A.L.L.). Lots of sudden tempo changes, lots of eccentric song titles. They shone fiercely and briefly over the course of three Homestead albums before splitting in 1988. Their mates mourned them, as mates do. Yo La Tengo went on to irritate anyone who's ever heard the original Velvets, and one of Rick's other melting pots King Missile spawned the Godlike Dogbowl. End of story right? Except nothing's final in the crazy world of American indie.

In 2002, notable drunk and ballet dancer Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices) mentions in passing that if only he could sing with the Tollbooth--a band who haven't existed for 14 years--they could "rule the world". Next thing you know, someone's erased all the vocals from the Tollbooth's swansong album, 1999's "Power Toy" and presented it to Pollard--so he can come up with brand new melodies and lyrics. Eh? Whatever. The end result is as perplexing and comforting as you'd expect: Cheap Trick meets Minutemen and decides that, yeh, OK, all this soft rock really is a bind. Is it really necessary? Who the fuck cares?

Everett True