Full disclosure:
Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys have appeared on our first compilation, The Sepiachord Companion*, and are set to appear on our second collection, A Sepiachord Passport**.
To be honest I was a bit nervous when Walter Sickert assembled a full fledged band for his Army of Broken Toys, instead of just Edrie Edrie is early, one-woman army. I was afraid that that Walter's mad genius would be diluted, that he'd lose some of the mangled magic by spreading it around.
I'm here to testify that I was wrong. My fears were so wrong headed as to make me considering chucking in this whole music-review shtick and go back to raising wooly mammoths on my veranda.
By adding seven to ten musicians (depending on the piece) Sickert takes his twisted songs and weaves them into Gordian Knots of compositions. There's a lot going on here, but *none* of is wasted. Every instrument, voice and player that has been folded into the mix has clearly been carefully considered. It gives the numbers on "Steam Ship Killers" a hypnotic level of depth.
BUT the band never runs you down with sheer numbers; they never play like a wall of sound to prove that they can.
Sickert may look like a handle-bar mustachioed anarchist, but behind those crazed eyes and under that wild shock of hair there's a percise artist who knows exactly what he wants in each song and what musicians are capable of pulling off his visions. Kudos to them all.
After listening to this album a few dozen times I realized why all this works. How Walter can give us twisted circus waltzes, necrotic sea shanties, macabaret, the whole lot and make it sound cohesive.
Sickert manages to pull music apart until he finds the blues/folk heart of each piece. Then he builds up from there. Half mad/half genius he's the architect (like the Ivo Shandor of music) of each song, but he needs skilled artisans to complete his anti-cathedral of sound. Luckily he's found them.
