Review | Music reviews: Toe, Mac DeMarco, The Maccabees and The Mynabirds

The long-awaited follow up to 2012's rather awesome EP, and Toe's first full album in six years, finds the instrumental Japanese post-rock outfit  expanding their sound and vision. Vocals on almost half of the tracks add a new flavour to the quartet's wondrous jazz-hop noodlings, but it's hardly what you would call a new direction. Thankfully, the fluidity of their song structures hasn't been dropped for a more formulaic or poppier sound, the vocal content only another subtle instrument in their intricate and vivid soundscapes.

Guitarists Yamazaki Hirokazu and Mino Takaaki continue to weave their complex math-rock melodies around the tight funk of bassist Yamane Satoshi and the frenzied beats of drummer Kashikura Takashi, but the songs, now with a lyrical focus, ebb and flow with a greater sense of urgency, making this the most accessible of any Toe album to date. It's difficult to argue that there's anything greater than the tracks on their album, but with a refusal to stand still, demonstrates just why Toe are one of indie's most dynamic and essential bands.

Toe  Hear You (White Noise Records)