CD REVIEW
Timber Timbre Hot Dreams
by Adam Perry for the East Bay Express, 4/8/2014
On “Demon Host” — a track on Timber Timbre‘s 2009 self-titled breakthrough album — singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Taylor Kirk proved his love of both Randy Newman and Glenn Danzig as he crooned about death and hellfire over an acoustic guitar melody. That impressive track has proven to be an effective blueprint for the Canadian trio’s slow, funereal — though oddly pleasant — music. The band’s just-released fifth album, Hot Dreams, however, adds a hefty dose of weird and sexy to its haunting and whimsical sound.
The twisted instrumental “Resurrection Drive Part II” is a leftover track Kirk wrote for the 2013 movie The Last Exorcism Part II. (His score, which was rejected, will reportedly be released in its entirety soon.) The rest of Hot Dreams is dirge-y, with alternately surrealist and sensual lyrics (e.g., my two hands landed like two spiders on your knee) and a hazy, velvety synth that makes the whole album sound like the soundtrack to a spacey, slow-motion porno filmed at a funhouse in the Wild West.
Timber Timbre’s records have always sounded profoundly cinematic and melancholic, but Hot Dreams is a startling left turn for the band — luxurious and hypnotic but at times absolutely terrifying. This is surely Timber Timbre’s most impactful album to date.
Adam Perry 