{"id":167,"date":"2011-06-29T18:29:49","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T18:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/?p=167"},"modified":"2011-06-29T18:29:49","modified_gmt":"2011-06-29T18:29:49","slug":"it-feels-good-to-feel-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"It Feels Good to Feel Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

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(A version of this review appears on kevchino.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Timber Timbre: Creep On Creepin’ On<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In a musical landscape throbbing with the nostalgic pulse of synthesizer and other lovingly reappropriated pieces of pop\u2014think Lady Gaga\u2019s homage to Madonna on \u201cBorn This Way,\u201d or Adele\u2019s debt to 1960s soul\u2014Canadian trio Timber Timbre<\/a> stand out for their twisted take on the mainstream\u2019s ardor for all things retro. On their new album Creep On Creepin\u2019 On, <\/em>the group playfully evokes the blithe strains of doo-wop and early rock n\u2019 roll, but they do so with the gleeful morbidity of a slasher film, eager to watch the good vibes turn sour. It\u2019s pop music taken to a ghoulish extreme, made expressly to get under your skin.<\/p>\n

Creep On<\/em> opens with the heavy backbeat and bluesy bass line of \u201cBad Ritual,\u201d an eerie ode to romantic dysfunction. Singer Taylor Kirk sounds like he was recorded at the bottom of a well, his voice awash in a shuddering reverb reminiscent of early Elvis recordings. There are echoes of the King, too, in Kirk\u2019s delivery, although his sneering baritone is weighted by a certain moroseness. It\u2019s not surprising, considering his gloomy surroundings. The slinky groove at the top of \u201cBad Ritual\u201d doesn\u2019t stand alone for long, sinking quickly into a thick sonic murk marked by the deep thump of the bass drum and, occasionally, the creak of an opening door. There is a certain filmic sweep to these lush orchestrations, which swell and retreat throughout Creep On, <\/em>as though the album were the score to a movie that follows Kirk as he wanders through an empty house, bumping up against things in the dark.<\/p>\n

You can only stretch a shtick so far, and the members of Timber Timbre seem to know it. Creep On<\/em> is a mere ten tracks long, three of which are instrumental. A penchant for goofy puns, demonstrated in the band\u2019s name and the album\u2019s title, reveals the group\u2019s apparent wish to inject a little levity into their music, which features an almost comical use of stock horror movie sounds\u2014a high-pitched whine like the howling wind, the heavy chiming of funeral bells. Kirk is a smart songwriter who describes heartbreak with chillingly sinister imagery, his love songs populated by monsters and touched by the phantasmagorical. But the band seems bored by his moody meditations, lapsing too often into spasms of orchestral madness which do little to illuminate Kirk\u2019s words. In the end, Creep On Creepin\u2019 On<\/em> is like a dark, beautiful dream, rife with a sense of import but fading quickly upon waking.<\/p>\n

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(A version of this review appears on kevchino.com.) Timber Timbre: Creep On Creepin’ On In a musical landscape throbbing with the nostalgic pulse of synthesizer and other lovingly reappropriated pieces of pop\u2014think Lady Gaga\u2019s homage to Madonna on \u201cBorn This … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}