Toadies: Best Of Toadies: Live From Paradise : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Fort Worth, Texas, alt-rockers the Toadies have a track record you could call sparse -- two full-length albums in seven years -- which is a shame, considering their debut, Rubberneck went platinum. This, their third LP, is a rare animal: a live best-of set. Recorded in Boston last year, Live From Paradise cuts hard and rocks out. The album comprises the prime cuts from their previous platters and two new ones, "ATF" and a cover of the Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?" While their breakthrough single, "Possum Kingdom," showed off their alt-grunge abilities onstage, the band shows themselves to be a cocktail of trad-hard rock, punk sonics lit up with smart lyrics and solar-plexus-punch vocals. Definitely at their best when they punk it out -- the early tracks are top shelf -- it's a pity these dudes don't make more records.

ADRIAN ZUPP
(December 6, 2002)