Kevin Bronson on January 12th, 2012

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During the agonizingly long gestation period of Marvelous Toy’s debut album, singer-keyboardist-guitarist Jordan Hudock played a million shows, lent his talents for a time to the Henry Clay People and earned reputation for his apoplectic ways at the piano. In fact, he never met a keyboard he couldn’t go all Jerry Lee Lewis on. Much of that pent-up energy, along with a torrent of the songwriter’s characteristic earnestness, is captured on Marvelous Toy’s debut, “Not Moving” (out this week). Hudock’s knack for sharply observational narratives at times suffers from heavy-handedness, but “Waiting for the Fire” and “I Have to Write This Over” are keepers, and “El Infiél” found its way into a recent episode of “American Horror Story.” The album’s piano-based songs are about as supercharged as piano-based songs can get. Just imagine Billy Joel, far less mawkish, Tasered into the new millenium.

||| Stream: “El Infiél”

||| Live: Marvelous Toy opens for Ozma on Friday night at the Bootleg Theater.

Photo by David Miller