Toothless – The Pace of the Passing review: ‘darkly playful’

Bombay Bicycle Club’s Ed Nash draws on English psych traditions on solo debut
Richard Godwin27 January 2017

Toothless is Ed Nash, who plays bass in Crouch End electro-janglers Bombay Bicycle Club and should maybe claim a promotion on the basis of this enjoyable side-project.

His classically inflected lyrics, finger-picked guitars and darkly playful sense of melody draw on the English psych traditions of Syd Barrett, Badly Drawn Boy, Simian, etc.

Sisyphus works as a one-man duet, its dual melodies charmingly jostling for position; on You Thought I Was Your Friend, the phased drums and buzzing bass push us into more unsettling climes, the chorus hook offering: “I want to hurt you”.

There’s a cutesy evasiveness to his vocals, multiply-tracked and mixed low as if to preclude intimacy – but the more dulcet moments (such as The Midas Touch, a duet with Tom Fleming of The Staves) can still cast a spell.

The shadowy harmonies of Sun’s Midlife Crisis - “Every day must pass away” - sound uncannily like the moment a summer evening turns dark and cold and the games must be packed away.

(Island)

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