Timber Timbre - Creep On Creepin On

Signed to hallmark Canadian indie label Arts & Crafts, Toronto natives Timber Timbre have released their fourth album, Creep On Creepin On. Reaching into the depths of swamp-blues over gothic, cinematic landscapes, it's a haunting record of superb consequence.

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On Black Water, the first single from Timber Timbre's fourth studio album Creep on Creepin' On, vocalist Taylor Kirk moans "all I need is some sunshine" in what has to be the most haunted baritone since The National's Matt Berninger. It's a surreal plea for this record, the desperate appeal for light coming from within the billowing fog of Timber Timbre's cinematic gothica; a plea that thankfully, goes unanswered.

The entire album is steeped in the dark sounds of B-Grade cinema; screams fill the void behind Too Old to Die Young, the stalking bass-line of Do I Have Power evokes the creeping walk of Mr. Hyde and the plucked hula-dream violin on Creep on Creepin' On is almost the sound track to unrequited Draculean love. The real kicker is that this never devolves into concept album wankery. It's done so effortlessly and with such wisened song-writing underneath the arrangements (which could so easily fall into gimmickry) that it works without fault.

On Creep on Creepin' On, Timber Timbre have pulled together a swathe of influences under a delicately crafted conceptual umbrella. At the heart of each swirling, darkened atmosphere lies a familiar core; Lonesome Hunter is essentially a Cohen-esque ballad once your ears find a way through the cavernous bass-line, reverbed vocal and violin flutter, while the 60's swing of Do I Have Power quickly gives way to creep-sodden darkness. It's this sense of arrangement that lends these songs such a unique sheen considering they're drawn from such familiar folk sources - and it's an unmissably glowing success.

Timber Timbre's Creep on Creepin' On is out now on Full Time Hobby via Other Tongues.