The 1982 Listening Post - Cuddly Toys - Trials and Crosses

 March 1 1982

Cuddly Toys

Trials and Crosses

Genre: New Wave 

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Trials and Crosses

Columbine’s Song/Fall Down

Lo and Behold

Well, color me stupid. I’ve never heard of Cuddly Toys (or the previous band, Raped) but one of these guys would go on to create Family Fodder and that shit was banana crackers good.

And this…well…smack me in my synth-wave nerds and tell me I don’t know anything cuz, jeez, this is a trip.

The foundations of that big New Romantic sound is here, with angular rhythms and tribal thumping amidst a sea of synths that call to mind the better Duran moments. 

But it isn’t just New Wave ditties, this thing is grounded in both punk AND grandiosity. You hear the former all the way through it and the latter creeps up on tracks like “Columbine’s Song” but that’s just a lead in to the heavy Wall of Voodoo-ism to “Fall Down”. 

Nothing on this lets you down, although you might find Purcell’s voice annoying at times, it’s definitive of the 80s so, in a word, it’s perfect. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/trials-and-crosses-remastered/308594660

The 1980 Listening Post - Cuddly Toys - Guillotine Theater

 January 23 1980

Cuddly Toys

Guillotine Theater

Genre: New Wave

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Brain Savior

Cuddly Toys comes out of the gate blaring with theatrical New Wave that, with the pounding pianos and soaring saxophones calls to mind the most retro-Glam of 7 years earlier. 

This is a theater piece on wax. As evidenced by that cover. It’s New Wave Tubes. Or a punk Mystic Knights (not in style but in presentation).

This is the era that would give us stuff like Gwar. Back when the holy merging of rock and theater was something to be enthralled by. 

If Gary Numan had a sense of theatricality beyond a dystopian worldview and merged with, say, Jim Steinman, you get songs like “Join the Girls” and “Brain Savior” and so many others. “Madman” is the band showing their influences on their sleeves. This is an audition for a David Bowie inspired musical.

But there’s already a Bowie and if he had wanted to make a Broadway musical out of Ziggy Stardust, he most likely would have. 

Had I heard this record in 1980 I might have been a Cuddly Toys fan. I’m not sure any of it made it across the pond. But it’s sure is a worthwhile relic of an era long gone. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/guillotine-theatre/264313435