Toques - Too Tired To Worry / Journeys End

  by John Clarkson

published: 2 / 9 / 2003

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Review

Sassy and energetic, the Toques have been bringing their unique blend of harmony-driven country pop to the British Midlands and their native Birmingham for the last four years. The group, a five-piece, which consists of Craig Hamilton (vocals, guitar), Jez Ince (vocals, guitar), Jim Bill Summerfield (guitars, vocals, harmonies, lap steel), Anna Russell (vocals, piano, Hammond organ) and Phil Robinson (drums), released their debut single, 'Drunk on My Porch/Southern Trail', on a now defunct Birmingham label, Winnebago, under their original name of Buick 6 in 2000. The double A-sided 7", 'Too Tired to Worry/Journey's End', is the band's second single, and the first under their new Toques moniker. Recorded between two John Peel radio sessions last summer, it has been released on another local label, Bearos. Both 'Too Tired to Worry' and 'Journey's End' wrap together in snappy style three piece vocal harmonies with breezy guitar melodies and a tinkling Honky Tonk piano. The first of the two songs finds an enthusiastic Hamilton on lead vocals trying to cajole a girl to put aside her worries so that he can seduce her, while the second number thrusts the acid-voiced Russell to the fore and has her pouring scorn on the games that an on-off pair of lovers play with each other. The front cover of the single shows an American car parked against a backdrop of the landscape of central Birmingham. The Toques are ample proof that country pop is not just confined to Nashville alone, and that the often unheralded British sphere of the genre is well and thriving.

Track Listing:-

1 Too Tired To Worry
2 Journey's End