- Where is the childish imp of yesteryear, the one who would have hoped -pruriently- that there would be risque photos to go with a band name like Sex On Toast? When I saw it, I groaned, inwardly, and it took me a long time to be persuaded that there is a sense, a strong one as it turns out, that this is the best name for this band and further, that it’s a very good reason for listening to this band.

I got a bit confused, I couldn’t see what they were about. There are nine whole people in this band from Melbourne and they have variously strong pedigrees obtained from toil in such outfits as Hiatus Kaiyote, Saskwatch, True Live, Vaudeville Smash, James Morrison's band and The Australian Art Orchestra. The fact that they’re all so musically good at what they do is perhaps what tripped me up, because I thought of them musically, first, before anything else.

There’s good reason to do so: from the late ‘70s to the late ‘80s there’s really not a funky, soulful, jazzy, soft-rocking, loungy, electro-tinged thing that the band can’t do, won’t do, or, by the evidence of this expansive, self-titled, debut record, haven’t done.

Prince is probably the most enduring and obvious reference for any ear encountering Sex On Toast, but there about a billion others: Zappa, Bacharach, Eric Carmen, Rick James, Hot Chocolate, Miles Davis, Wham!, Steely Dan, Quincey Jones, Yello, Toto, Stevie Wonder, Billie Ocean, MJ; on and on the list goes.

There’s so much happening that they seem to just about run out of space for all their references and had me thinking that this was some kind of superfusion: Miles Davis and Chick Corea on horse-steroids and with the bastard love child of Rick James and George Michael on vox. So, it is that and it’s amazing, but also it isn’t that.

Despite the effusion of allusion, all the music here is dedicated to hunting down a different superfreak from back in the day, one after another. It’s a series of gimmicks which is as cheaply entertaining as it is impressive. It shows off the band’s incredible skill and storehouse of knowledge, but in the last instance it may actually take away from the band’s ability to function musically rather than, say, as an incredibly skilled comedy troupe. This is borne out by the number of high-profile spots that the band have recently snagged at comedy festivals and the like. Not having seen them live I can only imagine that they would be stupendously entertaining. On record I sometimes wish they’d take a break from the gags to prove just how much so. It’s only a very little wish though; let’s face it, if Prince were perfect, he wouldn’t be a strange, furry little man in ugly pants. Sex On Toast are equal parts creepy, musically amazing and, of course, sexy and it’s enough.

- Chris Cobcroft.