The Demo Tapes – Toria & The Inconsistents (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

There are many difficult questions in the world, such as: What is the sound of one hand clapping? At what age does old age begin? If you describe something as “indescribable,” hasn’t it just been described? And, of course, the age-old conundrum of what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Well, I don’t know what you call that last one, but I know what it sounds like. It sounds like Toria & The Inconsistents getting their musical groove on.

The Demo Tapes documents the first stirrings of the coming together of poet and performing powerhouse Toria Garbutt and recording artist, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and all-around good egg Barry Snaith. It’s a combination of poetic yet vernacular lyricism and post-punk clout; grinding, gritty grooves and dexterous vocal salvos; odd and abrasive sonics and spoken word musings on the minutiae of everyday life.

Hot Plastic Moon is a snarling blend of warped guitar lines and driving beats, of out-of-this-world sonics and very-much-of-this-world kitchen sink dramas being described. Nights Are For Breathing runs on the same blend of analogue tradition and digital dexterity that made early Reverend and the Makers so cool, over which Toria agonises over the poet’s lot, the writer blocks, distractions, self-doubt, trash TV inspirations and the battered and bruised muse descending in the quiet of the early hours.

Finally, BFO Stallion draws on some more soulful sonics, funky bass lines, and chiming licks as Toria narrates tales of toxic relationships and being stuck in the wrong place, infidelity and justification, macho men, and that should-I-stay-or-should-go internal monologue.

Lyrics and poetry are not necessarily the same thing; the former can be mere words, and the latter requires a sense of flow and meter, dynamics and shape. Toria’s gritty word-scapes have all of that but it is the heights that Snaith’s musical arrays push them that is the real joy here. Both components, the word and the sonic deed, are excellently executed on their own but it is the combination, the counterpoint, the coming together of the two that really makes these tracks much more than the sum of their parts.