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Single Review: Toy Horses – And It Was You

Toy Horses – what sounds like an unlikely partnership between Adam Franklin and his stepfather Tom Williams – are releasing a new single, ‘And It Was You’, on 21 February on Albino Sparrow Records.

In the top 40 world of autotune and pretty-faced quasi-talents, Toy Horses is a refreshing change. Refreshing, in the sense that you can take ‘basic’ instruments – guitars, piano, drums and a spare violin – and record a song that blows away most things that require a computer or other electronic wizardry to get off the ground.

And often, sometimes simplest is best – but it’s simple that is truly the hardest to write, because you have nothing, nothing to fall back on. It either works or it doesn’t. True artists of songwriting are few and far between these days, and when I say ‘artist’, I mean people who can write songs and bring out the emotions of their listeners. The subject is not normal pop fodder but you know what? Who cares. I had a spin of this song for the first time a couple days ago, and it brought tears to my eyes.

The new promo video for the song continues this back to basics sentiment: it was filmed in a rural Welsh hamlet and features fans, family, friends and passersby miming the words (and quite happily, judging by their faces!) to the song while the carousel that has become Toy Horses’ trademark runs in the background. You can listen to a stream of the song below, as well as watch the video for it too. Catch the duo on tour in the coming weeks, details on TGTF.

9/10

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72zwKrD-0EE[/youtube]