The Cool Greenhouse Sod’s Toastie LP
Tom Greenhouse took on this alias to make glorious tumble-down post-punk garage all by himself, then got a bunch of band members to make an album that pretty much kept the same sound (that’s good!), and, excepting some saxophone and backing vox, has done everything you hear on Sod’s Toastie on his own again. What does it all mean? For us the grateful listener, very little. The COOL GREENHOUSE’s patented talking blues spin on the FALL and the MODERN LOVERS is still prevalent, though the swerve into Flying Nun-style fuzzed jangle on “I Lost My Head” feels new for this project, likewise the frequent bursts of rickety Afro-funk organ. Tom’s lyrical targets are righteous if not always revelatory—Jordan Peterson, Steve Jobs, finance market shitheads—and, with songs like “Hard Rock Potato” and “Get Deluded,” attached to some real joyful dirges, if that’s not an oxymoron. Heck, I can imagine the first of those being a floor-filler at the sort of decades-gone indie discos that played the SULTANS OF PING. Delightful music made with a legit DIY mentality that improves my life when I listen to it.