Hot Dreams, the sixth album in nine years from Toronto’s Timber Timbre, features ten tunes bound together by countless moments of dark and shadowy beauty. The album displays incredible musicianship, production, and overall vision and coherency which is laid out nicely on the title track, “I wanna still my mind…I want another chance to distill the time, I wanna rise up beside you, I want to be a champion in your eyes.” Frontman Taylor Kirk has a powerful voice that tends to sounds like Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave, especially when he sings the word “avalanche.” The sound is nostalgic and constantly demonstrates Kirk’s clear talent for great song writing. The tracks on Hot Dreams are catchy and spooky strange. Many songs move forward with bright organ and an out of phase electric guitar, leaving off from the band’s last fantastic album “Creep on Creepin’ on.” Hot Dreams builds from song to song, beginning with Kirk imagining and pleading for the way love once was. By track seven the love is broken and begins to fall – “what does it mean to be unhealthy badly, my love?…you turned me on, then you turned on me. This low commotion is going down.” When the album reaches stand out track “Run From Me,” Kirk is begging for his love to save herself the trouble of being with him. “Run from me darling, run my good wife, run from me darling, you better run for your life.” The album closes with the instrumental, “The Three Sisters,” highlighting feelings of uncertainty and longing brought about by dramatic and swelling horns, reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel’s “The Fool.” The Three Sisters seem to be inviting Kirk back down to earth after his emotional ride with a love that is now gone, but the album ends before he can make his return. (Arts & Crafts, timbertimbre.com) Gil Carroll