Monday, August 22, 2011

Gary's Timber Timbre Review

Creep On Creepin’ On starts as it means to go on. From the Dr Dre-esque piano and drums of Bad Ritual through to the closer Souvenirs, Timber Timbre’s album exudes an eerie, horror-movie sense of uneasiness that you just can’t shake.

The vocals drip with reverb, the drums shuffle along like a villain trailing the heroin, and the atmospheric instrumentals are bound to disturb your sleep. And yet, it’s not like this album is hard to listen to.

In fact, in an ironic twist, this is the mood and setting I feel like Colin Stetson was aiming for on his album and ultimately didn’t achieve.

Not to say this album is groundbreaking. A lot of these elements were well explored on albums like Dark Night of the Soul (the product of DJ Danger Mouse and David Lynch) or even Ryan Gosling’s Dead Man’s Bones. All share the creepy church revival sway and cinematic intensity - Timber Timbre’s however, does approach it an a uniquely Canadian way.

However the lumbering beats and piano do start to run together after a while and you start to wonder if you’ve heard this song before. It’s a great album, but maybe too much of a good thing.

So while Creep On Creepin’ On does feel a little one note, I still really dig the idea behind Timber Timbre’s log cabin recording. Like some kind of evil Justin Vernon - Mal Iver perhaps?

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