Review of Toy Dolls: We`re Mad & Idle Gossip

Introduction

I actually did sit through all 96 minutes of this, yet somehow I still have absolutely no f***ing idea what was going on. Basically, Toy Dolls are a punk rock outfit, who play their music to rowdy crowds in the basements of sordid pubs and occasionally in the ruins of some rich landowner’s estate. Interspersed with this are clips of frankly baffling Northern humor, featuring various scenes of the band arsing around, making impenetrable jokes before leaping incongruously into the next tune, which is bound to sound like a cross between Green Day and Sesame Street filtered through a tannoy.

Video

Let me put it this way, it looks as if someone has left the negative out in the sun, buried it in a fetid mud-bath for three million years, then dug up the fossilized remains, shoved it in a near by digitizer and trusted their luck. Although, given the dingy locations, the lousy camerawork and the irritating band, it’s all oddly appropriate.

Audio

Amazingly, the sound is actually quite good on this. The PCM track gives the music a crisp, clear transfer with plenty of bass. It’s hardly groundbreaking, but better than expected.

Features

You are joking? Although we do get a bonus track (‘Nelly the Elephant’… which is a work of about as much profound imagination as it sounds) and the world’s slowest, yet most boring menu.

Conclusion

Scrawny Happy Chappies screech dainty, but vaguely misogynistic ditties with as little charm as they can muster, whilst smacking the living crap out of their guitars and mugging relentlessly. The music is typical of the decadent punk that has by now made such an indelible mark on the mainstream, although fortunately without the corporate gloss. Toy Dolls get as loud and shouty as anyone else, but with their chimney-sweep melodies and flaccid vocals, it’s difficult to find any genuine punk edge within earshot.

Admittedly, there is no pretension to examine social dysfunction or inequality, but the lack of substance merely exacerbates the boredom, leaving the viewer with little to recall but their gormless hedonism and gutless defiance. Still, their relatively low-key presence admits to no delusions of grandeur. Unfortunately, the DVD seems to have undergone a similar lo-fi transgression. Non-obsessives need not apply.