Toehider
I Have Little To No Memory of These Memories

Well, the new album by Toehider has a very long title. But, wait a minute, is it really an album? Perhaps it is a single, it is just the one track. Toehider is the collaboration between Michel Mills, known as a guest singer on several Ayreon releases, and graphic artist Andrew Saltmarsh, and they have come up with quite a bit of stuff under that moniker. And it is not the most common, derivative stuff either, it was 12 EPs in 12 months, it has been four albums before this one as well, we reviewed the reissue of the debut last year. This one is a 47-minute adventure in one track, and just for the fun of it the endings of the story differs depending on whether you listen to the CD or the vinyl release. That is quite funny. Still, it might be a difficult thing to get many modern people to listen to a 47-minute track when the attention span is less than a minute these days. But it doesn’t stop Mills from doing it, he is not the first but perhaps the most adventurous.

It is just one track but the dynamics and variation through it is huge, and that makes for a tumultuous journey through the story. The well-produced story, where styles are varied through a large spectrum. It is probably progressive of some sort, but with adventures into many different styles of music. The sound is fresh, varied, interesting, Mills certainly looks for a more personal way of expressing himself and on this album he is very successful in that. Still, you may wonder how you sell a 47-minute album that is only one track, you can make videos for parts of it if you like – that is what Toehider has done, an animated video with the characters of Saltmarsh. It is certainly a creatively interesting album.

And it is a good album, a great one actually. I kind of like this one-track format, it forces the listener to enjoy the album as the creator intended. It is not the first one I have heard or that I have in amongst my records, and it is not the best, but too few musicians go down that route. I find that I like this much, especially some of the more intricate instrumental parts, and I think that Mills tells the story excellently, there isn’t anything I can complain about, all tracks are good, none of them bad – obviously. It is probably one that I will return to from time to time, perhaps not among the absolute best that was released last year, but certainly one worth mentioning from 2022.

It is well worth the time to listen to I Have Little to no Memories of These Memories, it is a great album. It is also an interesting artistic piece, and that is something that you rarely say about music, a musician is rarely an artist – but Toehider is a strong showcase of artistic skill. It is an album that I recommend you to check out, I doubt you will regret it, even though its only track is 47 minutes long.

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