Toad the Wet Sprocket - Rings: The Acoustic Sessions [Marbled Brown & Black]

Toad the Wet Sprocket have been playing these songs for more than thirty years, which is exactly why Rings works. Rather than another live album or a hits repackage, Glen Phillips, Todd Nichols and Dean Dinning went back into small rooms and rebuilt fourteen tracks from the ground up, stripping away the early nineties production and leaving the melodies to argue for themselves.

"All I Want" opens it and immediately makes the case: without the jangle and the reverb it turns out to be a considerably sadder song than radio ever let on. "Walk On The Ocean" and "Something's Always Wrong" get similar treatment, slower and closer to the microphone. "Fall Down" loses its drive and gains something more uneasy. Newer material sits alongside the catalogue without any obvious seam, which says something about how consistent Phillips' writing has stayed.

The band produced it themselves across three studios, Robert Stevenson mixed, and Dave McNair mastered. It is a quiet record made by people with nothing left to prove, and it rewards actually sitting down with it.

Double LP pressed on marbled brown and black vinyl in a gatefold jacket, plated at Record Technology Incorporated for Abe's Records.