The Toms – The 1979 Sessions

Anyone who’s been tumbling down the power pop staircase long enough eventually stumbles on the eponymous album from The Toms. Created by longtime studio vet, Thomas Marolda, the record is as solid as anything under the late ‘70s banner of the genre. Marolda was set to record The Smithereens when the band cancelled and instead he used the gap in his schedule to record the sessions that would wind up on his eponymous debut. Through it wasn’t just the tight tracklist that made the cut, he’d actually spent that lost weekend recording more than three albums worth of material. Some of this has made it onto various expanded CD versions over the years, but the material on The 1979 Sessions marks a round up of the remaining material from the weekend.

Marolda would go on to work behind the desk and in songwriting well into the present, and he’s picked The Toms moniker back up in recent years, but it’s impressive that even the third round cutting floor from the sessions in ’79 remain as packed with hooks as the songs included in this set. The set has landed over at Feel It Records who are finally pressing this lot to LP and giving it a good archival home. If you’ve never dug through The Toms’ original album, by all means start there, but if power pop oddities is your thing, there’s a bit more new blood from the band right here.

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