Review: Toy Dolls are a little-known but incendiary punk act from Sunderland, England; the band came together in 1979 at the pinnacle of the movement, at a time of fecund promise for genres such as oi!, industrial music and punk. As evidenced by their (now reissued via Radiation) third LP Idle Gossip, their sound is a riveting mixture of these. Its impeccably spacious sound and uniquely upper-register squeals, not to mention its male-female call-response patterns, transport the listener to a headspace of collective ecstasy, reminiscent of time spent watching your favourite team body the opposition, leading to a collective eruption of glee. Well worth listening to in tandem with their first two LPs, Geordie's Gone To Jail and Keith's A Thief, Idle Gossip is a quintessential, authentic slice of northeastern punk.
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