Toadies: "Summer of the Strange"

I hate to say it, but I've often considered Todd Lewis a bit of a squandered talent. After unleashing one of the greatest mainstream rock records of the 90's (Toadies' Rubberneck), Lewis and company had their follow up album straight up rejected by their record label, which resulted in a seven year wait for the underwhelming Hell Below/Stars Above (which stubbornly rehashed most of the shit that had been rejected in the first place; in 2010 Lewis actually had the gall to re-record that rejected LP - Feeler - when the label opted to spare the citizens of Earth by not releasing the old master tapes).

By that point most fans had stopped giving a shit, though, so Lewis broke up the band and formed Burden Brothers instead, which was frankly just Toadies-lite. When the inevitable indifference for Burden Brothers became apparent, a Toadies reunion was pretty much written in stone, so in 2008 we got No Deliverance, another ho-hum collection of post-inspired après-grunge blah. 

Four years later, I'm not ready to call "Summer of the Strange" a full blown comeback, but it's certainly more arresting than anything I've seen out of these guys in years. Maybe it's the Rob Zombie-cribbed visuals? Which are NSFW by the way.

Play. Rock. Music is out July 31, and hopefully it's better than that album cover ripped off from Hole above.