The Most Underrated Albums of All Time, Volume I: The Toadies – Rubberneck
The album begins with an instrumental track, the hustling anti-dirge “Mexican Hairless.” “Mexican Hairless” sounds like the theme from an experimental movie scene involving a deranged clown riding a tricycle through the depths of Hades. The tune flows nicely into “Mister Love,” an equally hellish composition that has singer Todd Lewis screaming at the top of his, “Are you gonna save me? Can you save me?”
These are important questions, as redemption (or lack there of) is the album’s common thread; that and chainsaw guitars and precision screaming. “Backslider” is a vicious shuffle about a horrid baptism and the loss of salvation: the tale of a bleak beginning that might have led the album’s tortured lead straight into a “Possum Kingdom,” the record’s backbone. “Possum Kingdom” was a fairly huge radio hit and for good reason; it’s a perfectly constructed rock song. Something bad happens in the possum kingdom, though were not sure what. Whatever it was, it was bad and scary and evil and it has Todd Lewis screaming, “Do you want to die,” like he really, really means it.
Whatever happened “behind the boathouse,” surely turned things around for the album’s voice. The songs get more introspective after “Possum,” and we learn a little about a female character (who, perhaps, is dead?) in tunes like “Quitter” and “Away.” You see, Rubberneck is constructed like a good movie, it’s thoughtful and non-linear. Lewis and company aren’t above speculating about the origins of us (“I Come From the Water”), and they’re definitely not above taking us straight to hell (“I Burn” and a little bit of every song) either.
Though many would say this is blasphemous, I think the Toadies really touched on Nirvana territory with this release. The combination of the melodic and the extreme heaviness are not easy grounds for cross-pollination; only a handful of bands have ever been able to get there. “Tyler” sounds like something Green Day would put out these days: it’s catchy, slightly crushing in the vein of punk but it would never be considered pop-punk by it’s current, miserable definition (i.e., New Found Glory).
However, by the time Rubberneck gets close to its finale, the band has given up on any normal concept of melody in exchange for the metallic blister-grunge of “Happyface” and “Velvet,” but those tunes are just a lead in. The album’s closing hymn, “I Burn,” begins with a solo acoustic guitar and lyrics like, “In the beginning we were smarter, and flame was heaven-sent / Through the ages we got stupid, now we must repent.”
Repent might not have been the best choice of words, as the song builds into a violent, crescendo, without speeding up, and Lewis screams for one last time: “I burn the air you breath!”
To me this is an album about not finding redemption, and how there’s a little savior hidden in completely giving up, in fucking religion and everything you’ve ever been taught. Lewis is the son of a preacher and Rubberneck is his full on assault to every ideal that had been stuffed down his throat; it’s a sick lesson for all of us dealing with a fleeting or nonexistent spirit, those of us who will always be one step behind: broken by the things we’ll never understand.
