Review: Tim And Sam’s Tim And The Sam Band With Tim And Sam – Life Stream

Tim And Sam’s Tim And The Sam Band With Tim And Sam – Life Stream
Hooked On Music 2010

[tags: acoustic, indie folk, post rock, 2010]

Listen while reading:

Choices (from Life Stream) download it!

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Tim And Sam’s Tim And The Sam Band With Tim And Sam, well, let’s just call them Tim & Sam. After 2 years and over 200 played shows, the band from North Wales finally released their debut record with the name Life Stream. According to the press release, it’s their goal to combine folk and rock. I agree with this but want to make an adjustment: they combine folk as in indie folk and rock as in post rock. I will give examples for this later. First of all: I enjoy this record, but with mixed feelings, it will certainly not be one of my 2010 favorites, but it sounds fresh, varied and independent and shows a band with lots of ideas and potential.

It’s a daring task to mix up genres and to create a somehow unique sound because this often separates the audiences – some will love the music, some will hate it. But I don’t want to overdramatize here, because post rock and indie folk isn’t such a experimental combination like folk and hardcore techno or post rock and funk. Besides that the mixture of Tim & Sam doesn’t try to mix up all elements into one sound, but they meander between post rock and indie folk. The result is an album with genuine (happy) post rock tracks like Summer Solstice and genuine indie folk tracks like All Tucked Up. A real combination of both genres can’t be found easily, maybe Out In The Ocean, Choices or Coming Home are representing candidates, but in the end still more indie folk orientated. And that’s the point, I think the indie folk aspect is a bit overemphasized. Especially tracks like Finders Keeper are an earsaw to me and I really don’t like them being on the album.

And that’s not because I don’t like Tim & Sam’s music, it’s the opposite, for I clearly see the potential of the band in such great tracks like the mentioned Summer Solstice, Out In The Ocean or Choices. Even the decision that they play a post rock track here and an indie folk track there is fine with me, because the album never comes apart. I’m just not happy how the album turns out in the end, it seems that Tim & Sam’s record could have been really deep and exclusive, but they wanted it to sound a little bit funnier and airier. And because of this fact, which explains the overemphasis on indie folk, Life Stream gets a little bit, not random, but flattened and I don’t have the urgent feeling to listen to this album over and over. And that’s not necessarily a bad sign, but it’s an indicator that something isn’t quite right. And in my case that something is the forced indie folk fun factor and the forced happiness. I’ve  some distrust in the album while listening, it’s like a smiling person that’s really sad inside, façade – and music shouldn’t be façade, it should be true and honest. And that I can’t feel.

You may ask youself, why I feature this album even though I don’t write negative reviws. The answer is simple, because I don’t think that Life Stream is a bad album, I think it shows great musical talent, a sense for writing good songs and arrangements, skill in playing instruments and so on. It’s just that the whole isn’t as good as the parts. At least in my opinion, because the album got much praise from all around the net and not few reviewers loved it very much. I just can’t love it, but I still like it though and I want you to form your own opinion about it. If I should rate the album, I would give 60 out of 100 points. I’m curious to hear the follow up record. To order your copy of Tim & Sam’s record, click this link. Don’t forget to visit Tim & Sam’s MySpace and band homepage.

A big thank you goes out to Lee from Knox Road for sending over the music to CFM!