Cassette Review // Mormon Toasterhead "A Different Letter" (Coin Dolphin Arrangements)
Perhaps the only thing better than finding a new artist who makes music that you like is finding an artist you hadn't really heard about in ten years and finding new music from them. Granted, since I hadn't heard about Mormon Toasterhead since their Rok Lok days, it's not that they stopped making music- because they have still been consistently releasing cassettes- it's just that I wasn't keeping up myself. So let's jolt right back into it with this new cassette, "A Different Letter", which begins with a reminder of the melodic indie rock sound that Mormon Toasterhead creates.
While I hear bits of The Benjamins and Flaming Lips in here, by the second song it comes out more like complex folk and I thinking of Elliott Smith as well. For all of the times I hear people debate whether Wawa or Sheetz is better, I rarely hear people reference Sheetz in their music but Mormon Toasterhead does name drop Wawa here. The sound also picks up to where it gets both bigger and louder to the point where you can hear a loud "WOO!".
As the sound gets a bit more clanky there is a line that I like which says "a fight that I can't win" and then it turns into screaming. With sounds like we're changing radio stations and sped up vocals, we go into an acoustic ballad that reminds me of early Beck. There are also these thoughts of this just being a Willy Wonka ride, as it feels like we could be dropping off into madness.
Onto the flip side and we start with some trippy vibes which also can feel like they're slipping. This could almost be twee and then there is an audio sample in here about a stray cat that is interesting. "The Only Fish" is very acoustic but then it goes right into this huge distortion. Big, electric guitars take over and the winding guitar sound can come through with robotic vocals as well.
To me, there is definitely something special about knowing that there was a band out there ten years ago making music and they're still doing it. I want to fill in the pieces in my cassette collection that I'm missing from Mormon Toasterhead, but whether you are like me and got distracted over time, you have been following along the whole time or you just are hearing the name Mormon Toasterhead for the first time, "A Different Letter" is the perfect place to start your new rock romance with this terrific band and really nothing makes me happier.
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