Toby Tune, creating enthralling soundscapes from his natural, inspiring locale – a mountainous rainforest in Costa Rica – is, thankfully, quite prolific. Having recently released Toby Opens His Mouth, Toby returns with Be Afraid, an imaginative score and/or excerpts for, according to the album’s description, “dramatic media.” Is Be Afraid the odd, eerie, and perhaps terrifying soundtrack for unnamed and potentially-hiding-right-behind-you horrors?? Prepare to be anxious, thrilled, or downright terrified by Toby Tune’s latest unnerving collection.
Read on…if you dare!
Be Afraid begins with eponymous track, “Be Afraid” – it’s the music one hears when entering an abandoned, poorly lit mansion with an unspoken (and probably ghastly) past. It’s the soundtrack for slowly, foolishly navigating stairs by candlelight, and perhaps seeing something phantasmic reenact, briefly, a gruesome historical trauma. My advice? Listen to the shrieking voice screaming, “GET OUT!!!!”
“Back Alleys” is spy-thriller fare with lower, ominous piano notes, washes of shivering strings, bending electric guitar, and busy, anxious percussion. If you’re on the run from a shadowy government agency whose existence is so egregiously classified, it’s unknown to the sitting U.S. President, “Back Alleys” is the soundtrack for those living in a constant state of narrow escapes.
“Dark Evening” is sci-fi nervousness; it’s large and echoing, as if peril hovers from above, atomizing buildings and people with catastrophic beams of light. It creates images of hysteria and destruction wrought by some insidious alien force; it arrives without warning, and mankind, looking up in horror, can only run, hide…..and pray.
“Hurricane” is filled with powerful wind, bells, and sharp, ominous strings. Hard percussion hits, piano strikes, thunder cracks, and other clanging sound effects occur as the wind howls, churns, and spins. If a hurricane arrived with an accompanying soundtrack, this very song would play loudly – and threateningly – from the eye of the storm.
Track #8, “Spooky,” is exactly that. With a ghostly, wavering synth lead over deep, moaning strings and creaking, perhaps rusty machinery, “Spooky” quickly terrorizes any boring, fear-free environment.
“Tense Intense” features a filtered air foundation over creeping, Jaws-like lower notes that immediately portend the appearance of a circling, blood-hungry predator.
The album closes with “Whatch Out” (which….might be a spelling error?); it features a streaking violin leading to deep string staccatos. And then, the strings find their pace; they imply something previously slow and ominous now gaining speed and aggression to properly impale you. And with a wider sonic berth, dark choral synth pads and other wavering synth sounds preface a hasty ending marked by a massive, metal-on-glass collision. It’s…quite an impact.
But is it good?
If by “good” you mean “scary,” then yes, it absolutely is. This music – these uncomfortable sound environments – conjure imagery of alien invasions, blood-starved beasts, unpleasantly haunted locales, and any number of horrific situations where the threat is perhaps beyond currently understood science. If the dark, abandoned cabin you’re currently vacationing in isn’t implying the arrival of a certain hockey-mask-adorned killer, then I suggest playing Toby Tune’s latest collection, Be Afraid. You’ll be shaking, crying for help, and desperately dialing the sheriff on an unexpectedly dead phone after the very first track. Recommended.
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