Timber Timbre’s last outing, the excellent Keep On Creepin’ On, was met with almost universal indifference outside of their native Canada, where they received a number of richly deserved award nominations.3 years on, multi-instrumentalist Taylor Kirk has opted to hand over greater creative responsibility to long-time collaborator Simon Trottier, who steps forward to join Kirk as co-composer & producer on Hot Dreams. In many ways, the end results are similar to Keep On Creepin’ On, but there are some noticeable progressions too.
Generally speaking, the long, menacing-sounding instrumentals that occupied a significant chunk of Keep On Creepin’ On’s track listing are used more sparingly, restricted to the cinematic Resurrection Drive Part II and closing cut The Three Sisters. What we have instead – perhaps because of the time Kirk spent in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles while writing the songs on Hot Dreams – is a noticeable shift towards American alt-country, evident from the first acoustic strums of hypnotic opening track Beat The Drum Slowly.
This influence is particularly noticeable on the elegantly wistful Grand Canyon, which sounds like the best song The Handsome Family never wrote, although Kirk still can’t resist a burst of discordant weirdness in the middle to stop the dustbowl twang becoming too predictable. Bring Me Simple Men sees Kirk at his most threatening and foreboding, crooning “every big shot is a hunter, every hunter has his prey” above some woozily ominous guitar chords. It’s country, sure, but not as we know it.
