reviews / 2010

THE TOY LIBRARY - Haunted Woodland – Volume One

Name: THE TOY LIBRARY – Haunted Woodland - Volume One
Item: Haunted Woodland - Volume One
Rating: 6
Author: Raffaello Russo

2010 (Wayside & Woodland)

ambient, drone

by Raffaello Russo

Coinciding with the release of the debut solo album by his bandmate Ben Holton, Rob Glover is also putting out a collection of tracks under his project The Toy Library. Across the little more than half an hour of "Haunted Woodland – Volume One", the distance from his main band is far more noticeable, as Glover resolutely plays up the atmospheric side of the Epic45 sound, setting aside beguiling acoustic cadences and melodic textures in favour of hazy reverbs and droning saturations, repeated and lightly unsettled by electronic irregularities.

The result is a rather dark and bare ambience, by no means lacking in charm but able, only in a few passages (the longer "Approaching The Gate" and "Ruined Walls", and the cosmic hints of closer "Turning Back"), to open up into enveloping depths and prove as imaginative as one might expect from an artist of Rob Glover's calibre. Still, it's an ambitious attempt, on ground fairly distant from that of the band, but also from some of the qualities that, over the years, have made it so beloved — and which, after these two ultimately transitional solo efforts, can only heighten anticipation for a new Epic45 record.

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26/12/2010

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Raffaello Russo, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition