Cenosillicaphobia

EDITORIAL REVIEWS
THE Toss pints sophomore release presents a matured sound with the band moving farther away from the more traditional Irish vibe of 11 Empty Bottles and into owning their own style. Here you have a different type of drinking music that often explores the darker side of the human condition.

REVIEW
Cenosillicaphobia (n): the debilitating fear of an empty glass When cooking with quality ingredients, if they are expertly mixed by an experienced and creative chef, it's best to leave things simple and let those ingredients speak for themselves. Overwrought techniques, a laundry list of ingredients, or a cacophony of spices will sully the dish for the sake of showing off. The flavors of just a few fine elements, with a bit of professional polish, makes for the most memorable experience. With that philosophy The Tosspints are serving up their newest album, Cenosillicaphobia. With the essential components of hard-driving guitar, electric bass, and street-punk drum kit, mixed with vocals heavily spiced with profanity, Irish punk is a dish best served raw. The sound on the album is nicely mixed and layered by producer Andy Reed, refining the Tosspints' signature stage sound just enough to perfectly present this platter. Yes, platter. As in, old-school vinyl album. To further belabor the cooking metaphor: when serving up a creative concoction, presentation counts. The Tosspints' second album is presented in multiple media MP3 download available everywhere for your convenience (at CDBaby, Amazon, Emusic, MooZone, tradebit, and of course iTunes), and on vinyl album for style, nostalgia, and tactile tangibility. Tosspints frontman Donny Zuzula explains their retro choice: "When I was 3 or 4 years old we had this record player, and I can remember going through the drawer to pick out 45s to put on it. In the late 80s my family made the switch to CDs and tapes, and the record player went to my room, and I started to collect records. It seems like records are more of an experience when you listen to them; the cover art, and the warmth of the sound. This became a connection to my father-in-law too; LeighAnn's father is an audiophile and has this huge record collection. There's a warmth to the sound on vinyl that appeals to audiophiles. "And there's this permanence to record albums that . it's like in Planet of the Apes, or in Mad Max; hundreds of years in the future, after the apocalypse, they come across a record, and they're able to play it. It's still there. It's something solid. Putting music on a record feels more substantial." Playing together as The Tosspints since 2007, brothers Don Zuzula and Zak Zuzula, along with drummer John Johnson, are a high-energy stage show with a lot of passion and presence. Taking their band name from a Pogues song, The Tosspints carry on the Irish pub-punk tradition of channeling anger and angst into something you can dance to. Now this trio of collaborative composers has put together a second album of original songs about drinking, death, and despair; an album that is just as hard-driving as their stage show and their first album. "We've been through a lot together our dad died when we were young, I've been to war, terrible things have happened to people in our lives so we write what we know. I think there's something to be said for getting emotions out rather than sitting on them. Plus, it's just good story-telling . what else are we going to write about; suburbia and our jobs? Truth is stranger than fiction, you just have to find the stories in it." Some of the best tracks on both albums are the most miserable stories the closing track on Cenosillicaphobia is the story of a dying soldier, echoing a track on the previous album, the same story told from different viewpoints but those are also the songs that really make you have to get up and dance. The driving drum licks and sassy guitar hooks and gritty lyrics swing the sad stories out of the basement of the soul and up into the stratosphere, and on its way up it can pull you --360mainstreet.com

The Tosspints: An Irish Red Ruckus & The Fear Of An Empty Glass It isn't everyday that one band emerges out of the pack to lead a cultural change that is as astonishing as it is necessary. The Tosspints have been an integral part of the water clock bringing ancient sounds and stories back to the future in perfect calibration with our innate need to hear music and feel rhythm. The Tosspints create music of beauty and discord; love and pain. It is real like a punch in the face or a deep shudder in your solar plexus after chugging a pint of Guinness. It hurts but you like it. Their current disc Cenosillicaphobia is being released on CD and vinyl! Retro is now and vinyl LPs are making a comeback. Thank god we came back to our senses and returned to the sound of music - analog rules! We found out that CD s don t have the rich warm sound of vinyl nor do they hold up very well. This time around the Tosspints do not hold back anything,. The medium is the message and punk has a way of cutting to the chase whether is love and infidelity or death and despair. The anti-war sentiments fashioned by Don Zuzula are brutally honest. Zuzula served in the military and he knows only too well the costs of conflict. He was stationed in Iraq and he saw it all. War is hell and war is horrifying and it seems that his sense of humor kept him balanced between stillness and action. It was a form of Zuzula s alternate rebellion when he painted No Fat Girls on his truck when the rest of the caravan painted slogans like Death to Saddam or Kill Al Quaeda. It was genius threefold. It was a way to survive, to find meaning in suffering. The first track Drunken Ramblings of a Jealous Man grabs you right at the start with a galloping beat and a cracked whiskey voice. It s almost as if Zuzula is talking with you at the kitchen table - only the pain is too big and the words are unspoken. He sings about life on the road - drinking himself to sleep and performing to crowds that don t always get it. He gets by with bloodstains on my fingers; teardrops from my eyes. This is a song of infidelity and an impulse to murder. The despair is indelibly stamped and there is no satisfying conclusion to the betrayal. Zuzula ends the song with a powerful accapella reading Whiskey Be My Savior is outrageous high energy rock that owes as much to the Sex Pistols as it does to the Dropkick Murphys. The influences converge to create a perfect storm of combustible booze-filled Punk. It is a Dionysian dream of excess and consumption. In this bleary vision Zuzula is suckling from a toxic breast. He sings, the only time I feel death is when my bottle s empty. It is sung as a mantra for numbness. It is a dissociative response to a life dissolved by pain and self-destruction. Many of us have been there. Zuzula is standing outside the pain and observing his own mastery over it The third track, Don t Cry at My Funeral, has an honest unflinching fatalism. It s an existential horror to discover that your life did not matter. This is a punked up working man s blues that evokes visions of filthy back breaking and mind numbing work for paltry wages. It can kill your soul. You work for the man and die quietly without fanfare. There is nothing to mourn. The speeded up breakneck tempo mirrors the workaday bustle that robs you of all the sparkle life can offer. The insurance man talks you into a policy and in the heaviness of an unrelenting ennui you realize your passion and taste for life are gone. Suddenly a thought intrudes -I m worth more dead than alive. Underclass Zero is a breakup song. Joseph Heller once said, I only got married to find out what divorce is like. It isn t that simple or that cavalier. Heller was out of his mind. In any failing love relationship, a once enduring bond becomes a nightmare of hopelessness and regret. --The Review Magazine

Number of Discs: 1

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