1990s progressive pop by Kevin Gilbert and Patrick Leonard
Toy Matinee was a one-time recording collaboration between Patrick Leonard and Kevin Gilbert. Leonard had found international success writing and producing Madonna on True Blue; Gilbert was a multi-instrumentalist who’d recorded a pair of progressive rock albums in the late ’80s as Giraffe, and would become a key player in the Tuesday Music Club from which Sheryl Crow’s debut album sprang. The crossing of Leonard’s commercial instincts and Gilbert’s prog-rock background resulted in an album that leans towards the progressive pop of Steely Dan, Utopia and Genesis, complete with top-notch instrumental chops and a slight air of sterility. The album’s most emotional tunes, including “Toy Matinee” and “There Was a Little Boy,” the acoustic lined “We Always Come Home,” and the demo “Blank Page,” shake off the studio-bound sound. Those who enjoyed Gilbert’s later solo work on Thud and The Shaming of the True will be happy to find this earlier work back in print. Noble Rot’s reissue augments the original album’s nine tracks with the same quartet of bonus demos offered on the 2001 CD reissue, but minus the previous reissue’s lengthy booklet. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com] 