Originally created by Samuelito Cruz in 2014 as his bedroom project, to expand soon into a four-piece, Oakland-based slacker rock band TONER have just dropped the 2-track cassette single, “Under The Gun”, via Smoking Room, the follow-up of last April’s album “Silk Road”, their third, more mature and refined LP so far.
Blending the slacker attitude of the early 90s with the energetic indie noise rock of the late 80s and adding sweeping reverb-infused shoegaze distortion along with lo-fi punk intensity into the mix, the band show a distinctive strong emotional melodic quality, struggling between sweetness and harshness, subdued abrasion and hazily dreamy introspection, constantly able to deliver addictive and boisterous tunes, as immediate as they are impactful, packed of catchy refrains that sneak into your head without ever leaving it.
In an intriguing combination of “Warehouse: Songs And Stories” period, Husker Du’s restrained edginess and The Clash-like soaring vocal harmonies, pounding stifled rhythms propel a dense but breezy slightly sharpening barrage of guitar drowned in fuzz, that relentlessly expand, pulse, sometimes stutter, cut by sparkling, rambling 6-string wails, around numb male vocals fall drearily detached into the ecstatic melted chorus hooks’ overwhelming influx of emotion.
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