As the first track of Hot Dreams stomps slowly onward, we’re dragged along what seems like an endless and rocky dirt road. Our head sporadically bounces as it knocks against each pebble bulging from the cold ground. We can’t see him, but we can hear our bitter captor as he quietly grumbles a sinister lullaby, lamenting of camera-hungry celebrities and emerald coffins.
Timber Timbre’s latest album plays like the soundtrack to a creepy slasher flick. We’ve been kidnapped, seduced by Taylor Kirk’s deep and somber croons. As he sings, his sultry voice fills us with a familiar doo-woppy warmth. Pay closer attention and the realization we might never leave the dark and shallow grave he’s lugged us to lands harder than the thud a body makes as it hits the ground. Wait, what was that?
Even through moments of pure provocativeness highlighted in the title track, it’s easy to hear just how close Timber Timbre has come to perfecting that nightmarish soundsphere we’ve come to expect. The sexy saxophone distracts us, captivating our hips, begging them to sway side to side. We’re stuck, we are his and he knows it. Timber Timbre’s third and no-less gory studio album does such a bewitchingly clever job of making us feel like our limbs are not ours, no matter how much we try to contest it.
“Curtains!?” takes the spot for most upbeat song on Hot Dreams, imploring us to nod our heads and shimmy our shoulders. Our feet betray us as they begin to tap the moist soil below, unable to resist the teasing bassline and the sneaky drum beat casting their spell. Even with how seemingly cheery this track initially feels, it later comes across as a menacing taunt only to spark a delirious hope within us, “curtains can’t conceal what we’re hiding” – perhaps our abductor has changed his mind, we will be the special one that gets away?
In the tracks to follow Kirk smoothly summons his brother to resurrection. We hear as the booming echo of our imprisoner coaxes his new zealot to gather up an army of equally cadaverous men. “Every hunter’s got his prey” he purrs at his newly-awakened army, ready and waiting to carry out his plans of doom.
A voiceless yet appropriately eerie transition brings us to the nostalgic “Grand Canyon”. This raw shanty feels haunted by the melody of Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy”. Screechy strings and mournful sax keep the mood from climbing out of it’s murky depths as the steady stomp of the bass drum ends the ballad in a gloomy parade of despair, ending the track in a far cry from the 1975 hit.
With the tormented wails in “This Low Commotion” we witness as the baritone martyr before us begins to drown in self-pity. The capturer engrosses himself in his own agony crying “you turned me on, then you turned on me.” While he preoccupies himself with pessimistic visions and guitar plucking we see a chance to escape, the glimmer of freedom vibrating in our heart like the strings against the violinist’s fingers.
The second to last incantation from Timber Timbre on Hot Dreams is the climax of our horrific cinematic nightmare. We’ve somehow managed to flee the rotting shack we’ve been held in for what feels like days, but was actually just under 45 minutes. Our soiled feet and tear-filled eyes filling the screen with slow motion black-and-white slivers as “run from me, darlin’ you better run for your life” accompanies a simple piano melody. An angelic hymn of “oohs” and “ahhs” tell us we’re okay, tell us we’re free.
The sputtering camera jolts to an end and the credits begin to crawl like drunk spiders across the screen. Whether intentionally or not, Timber Timbre’s Hot Dreams has once again provoked the vivid imagery of nightmarish scenes we might have only witnessed in the goriest of cult horror films. The unnerving melodies and the shrill strings seem to have been arranged purely to breed sinister and sweltering hallucinations within us. Dreams lucid enough to second-guess whether or not we fell asleep listening to the unnerving freak-folk of a band carving out its unique sound or are vaguely recalling an abduction we only half remember.
Rating: 4/5