- Growing is the first full-length record from Tim & The Boys, a Sydney bred three-piece consisting of eponymous ringleader cum drum programmer and synth player Tim Collier, and the boys Dan Grosz and Will Harley on bass and guitar respectively. The album unfolds as a series of hook laden, shout-sung, solitary punk anthems, accompanied almost exclusively by a typically forceful combination of stripped back guitar riffing, quickly picked basslines, disco drum machines with an abundance of hand claps, and one line synth and effects, reminiscent of the sound and antics of new wave bands like Devo with the momentum of Big Black and the sonic depth and debauched lyricism of Chrome.
The brief detournements from the fundamental Tim & The Boys formula, like the gentle and slowly decaying twinkling of piano keys that precede the album opener No Can Do, feel purposeful and concise and certainly not lacking. The piano sets the mood for a downward spiral into to the forthcoming odyssey of pummelling new wave punk plainsong. Tim & The Boys urgent focus doesn’t shift very far from this initial terrain.
White Guys plays with sarcastic irony in an intentional undermining of the anthemic quality of Tim’s lead vocals, the play is given some conceptual meat with the addition of a hard panned behind-the-scenes chorus of sycophantic layered vocals that mimic Tim’s uniform lines and betray his arrogant chant as sad and impotent. The more experimental production approaches greatly expand the memorability of certain tracks and provide a pleasant release from the central behemoth that lies at the heart of Tim & The Boys songwriting. It’s repetitive, it’s consistent but each song offers a unique idea that shines with the addition of those unique elements that no doubt owe something to the hand of Andrew McLlellan of Cured Pink and Enderie in the production seat.
Gary Glitters Eyes pokes most directly into the undercurrent of the album, the sinister, sad and banal realm of pop culture and its perverse penetration into our most intimate thoughts and relations. In casting a simultaneously familiar and alienated light on a debased white male, pop culture dominated society the intention seems superficially similar to fellow Sydney punk band Low Life, but Tim & The Boys operate in distant artistic way, occupying roles that seem distinctly adjacent to those they channel into their parody as satirists or simply self-aware fools. Tim & The Boys take a few swings at sincerity on Growing, with tracks like Plastic Curtain and Silent Room striking at the heartstrings, offering a welcome change of momentum and swathe of dichotomous interpretations while playing with sweeping synths, heart wrenching vocal hooks, Joy Division rhythms and lingering guitar riffs.
Tim & The Boys brand of parody is like an in-joke in that it takes a certain level of established fondness to fully understand and appreciate its intentions. It takes some time to hear the uniqueness in it as well: full of repetitive looping phrases, an ostensibly strict instrumental range with spare implementation and subtlety releases something unique out of the uniformity, beyond the form of guitar solos and synth filter play. Really though, Tim & The Boys don’t seem concerned with diverging from expectations, they’d rather raise them up and poke at the layers of malaise to reveal the warmth inside. The result is a focused and engaging album from start to finish, with enough genuine pop hooks to keep you off the real stuff for while.
- Jaden Gallagher.