Review: Toxic Boy’s ‘Troubled’

Toxic Boy’s debut album “Troubled” opens with an eponymous force of fuzz full of slacker growls that verge on the Cobain-esque. While Toxic Boy, whose real-life name is Andy Groke, may at times exude punk bravado, in his quieter moments he reveals himself to be an introspective over-thinker.

Vice gripped between sound bites from the film “SLC Punk,” “Troubled” is a rollicking track exploding with angst. The Long Beach native sings: “I look so young / but I feel so old.”

Youth rebels recklessly at the first inklings of mortality. Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll are the cliché salves for the young, troubled mind. And while Groke doesn’t shy away from this tired trope, this isn’t an album about mindless hedonism but about the pains of being self-aware enough to recognize the heedless path of self-destruction.

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Artist: Toxic Boy

Label: Wiener Records

Release Date: October 27, 2015

Rating: 4 / 5 stars

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“I think we have more time / So please give me peace of mind / Maybe a drink of wine,” he solemnly sings on “Hungover Again.”

But if the nihilistic opening track serves as an exorcism for existential demons, the rest of the album is about self-reflection and trying to reach a plateau of solace.

On the surface, “Troubled” is the soundtrack to the morning after, when the sun is too bright and the mind is still fumbling to piece together the incomplete puzzle of another last night. It’s in these mornings that whimsical escape fantasies feel just as plausible as doom-and-gloom perceptions of ones life, and perhaps this is why the album has an all-over-the-place feel.

Stylistically the album is made up of a wide constellation of influences. The second track “Let Her Sleep” has a Kinks sort of thing going on with the handclapping, trebly guitars and catchy-but-snarly vox. “Toxic Boy” resembles the quivery yet unabashed confessionals of early Conor Oberst. “I Got Shot,” a slow jangle-and-twang number, has intimations of Simon and Garfunkel as well as Nirvana unplugged.

Ultimately this is an album about waking up: whether it’s waking up from a night of carless revelry or from the innocent bliss of youth. In either case the hangover and self-loathing feels endless. But Groke isn’t a pessimist.

“Sometimes I wanted to die but then I said no / And there are days when we could feel alive but then we say no / It’ll all be okay,” Groke reassures on “Hungover Again,” repeating the final line over and over like a mantra.

In the end, it’s these flecks of hope that glitter like gold throughout the eight songs that make the LP a safe haven for the downtrodden. The album ends with the sound of a beer being cracked open—as if to say, “Lighten up, man, here, have another.”