aaamusic | On 13, Sep 2010

Special Benny are exactly that: special. As a musician, the idea of a band in which “5 members can distinguish between a Neapolitan 6^th, and a French 6^th” greatly appeals; it’s sometimes nice to have a band with both passion and music theory under their belts. I have heard few bands which can pull off prominent use of clever harmony without sounding the slightest bit pretentious.

            The guitar playing throughout is excellent both on a technical and stylistic level with intriguing chords backed up by solid fingerpicking and pickwork. Solos would really not suit this particular style of technical indie music, so the lack of them is not something the listener particularly misses. If you came for squealing overdriven guitars and 200bpm double bass pedalling, I’d advise you turn away and do another search around. Toys is an album for those who like to kick back and chill out. It provides a soundtrack to let your mind run wild, but with nice interjections of faster tracks such as Inspector Sands and Well Done, Josef! Most tracks are a contrast between stark sinusoidal synths cutting through the air like a windchime, acoustic/vocal sections and cuts to indie rock interludes. An individual formula which works like a dream! The vocals in Toys are often sparse and sometimes unintelligible, yet nonetheless add hugely to songs when present.

 It’s hard to quite describe the feelings brought up by listening to Special Benny without ending the sentence with “or something like that”. It has a tendency to make your mind wander and break concentration with a hearty dose of harmony. Toys somehow evades description and rationalisation, it just is what it is; a journey to nowhere and everywhere.

Author: Francis Windram