Timber Timbre // Creep On Creepin' On

Last year's self-titled Timber Timbre album was songwriter Taylor Kirk's experiment with stripping down all the music that he loved to its bare essentials, without a single note or drum hit that didn’t need to be there. Creep On Creepin’ On takes this concept a touch further, scratching away at the history of rock ‘n’ roll until there’s little left but the echoes of walking basslines and the silhouettes of microphone stands. This is the starting point from which Timber Timbre subtly begin to carve a new niche for themselves. Kirk has started to sound like Elvis. Not the Elvis you know, but an Elvis waking from a deep morphine-induced sleep. A woozy Elvis. An Elvis from a parallel universe who never became king. Lyrics play an important role in defining this album ("You have every reason to be frightened since you’ve been reading my mind"), but a couple of tentatively avante garde instrumental tracks hint at a more experimental side of Timber Timbre that isn’t yet fully integrated into the overall sound. Creep On Creepin' On feels like a turning point, where anything could happen next. It’s as if they’ve successfully deconstructed popular music – all ofit – having soaked up the bits that nobody else noticed or were interested in, but haven’t completely decided what to do with it all. This is an album of great depth and inventive arrangement but it’s not quite there yet, though it’s still one of the most intriguing records so far this year.