Del Toro hail from the hot, sunny, sweaty, dirty climate of Brisbane, Australia. Harnessing, most noticeably, the wonders of vintage twangy guitar sounds with copious reverb and occasionally tremolo, they evoke summer heat radiating off the bitumen, suffocating the senses and forming a residue of sweat on your brow. And they certainly sound like they’ve been sweating their asses off making this brief EP – I can taste the dust they’ve inhaled through their soily tracheas. This is dirrrty, and not in a Christina Aguilera way. Most of this sounds like it should really be in Ennio Morricone’s score for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, which is a good and bad thing at the same time., But not ugly.

This particular release is short, five tracks at just over twenty minutes, and this is certainly limiting. To their credit, they’ve managed some variation; the odd-numbered tracks bearing the aforementioned Morricone-esque style and the evens displaying the approach of an instrumental indie rock band. Variation isn’t always good though as it does give a sense of a lack of focus, which is saddening, because there are some very commendable moments.

The instrumental format is perhaps not the best choice (if it is a choice) for Del Toro, particularly in the opening track “Theme Del Toro”. The 3 and a half minute duration sounds like it could make a kickin’ vocal song. Alas, we are left with a bare background that deserves vocals - one of the most alluring parts of Morricone’s score for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, was the strange vocalisations in it. This is what may be missing from this particular song. The second and fourth tracks do seem to make up for it though. While the sound of these two tracks is less interesting than that of the rest, they have a focus, and the buildup to greater textural and dynamic intensity is well done.

The cream of the EP is the final track, which consolidates the sounds of tracks one and three, with the styles of tracks two and four, and creates a vast-sounding dirty desert, climactic, dusty post-rock song that bleeds. It spells good things. Even if the rest of the EP is somewhat more banal, this is well placed and ends the EP on a pretty explosive note - this is always a good thing for instrumental bands

In summation, Del Toro is almost a winner, but falls short with its muddled ideas, and perhaps a lack of originality in some parts. Certainly there is no reason to call this a bad release, as it is not, mediocre is a better descriptor, but the final track is superlative and in this case lifts the whole release. Not bad, not bad

- Marcus Whale