The Toll – The Toll

I don’t know anything about this band or the label Youth Attack but a friend of mine came round my house with a load of records and said ‘listen to this’ and it reminded me of when I was a kid and I first heard Iron Maiden or the Exploited or Crass.

I was obsessed with heavy music when I was young. It was a path that led me onto being obsessed with Swans, just trying to get heavier and heavier - and I love doom as well - but this record is incredible. It’s kinda doom without any of the posturing, or any of the silliness that sometimes comes with doom. It’s bleak as fuck and it’s got one of the most intense atmospheres I’ve ever felt or heard. Also, even though it sounds like it was recorded on a bloody dictaphone or something that doesn’t effect it; it puts me in exactly the same place as Mohamed Rouicha or Księżyc. Even though it’s ridiculously heavy - a ridiculously heavy record - there’s something about the atmosphere. When I first heard it I got obsessed and managed to find a copy of on vinyl and it’s one of those records where you can just lie on the floor and be covered in this filthy, filthy thing. My mate Daz who plays in a band called Personal Hell first played it to me and - unbeknownst to him - he managed to change my life. It made me think ‘ok, maybe Swans’ Filth is not the heaviest record I own!’