A hot, oppressive summer. Blue sky, yellow sun, Beach Boys in the ears. But not everything shines in the sunlight. Where tall buildings stand, there are street canyons, dark shadows, sweat, dust, and dirt. TIMID TIGER has named their third album “The Streets Are Black,” on which they take us into a tropical summer that doesn’t exactly show its hammock side, even if the songs present a nonchalance that instinctively makes you reach for your sunglasses. Gone are the days of cartoon pop, when the quintet from Cologne played wildly and celebrated Miss Murray, the Loveboat, or Ina Meena Dika. “The Streets Are Black” sounds more mature and grown-up, yet also more motivated and lively than anything we’ve heard from TIMID TIGER so far. Because where there is shadow, there must also be light somewhere, and that can be found in 12 songs that showcase enormous confidence and the freedom to experiment.
The first single “The Sun Goes Down, The Streets Are Black” perhaps provides the most precise entry point into the album. The title track compresses the common thread of “The Streets Are Black,” which consists of ambivalence: the two sides of things. Light and shadow, heat and cooling, the lonely search for a person in the midst of a crowd. And all of this in a hypnotically pulsating rhythm, with relaxed drifting guitars and soft vocal lines. The second single “Hangin' in the Sun” comes across a bit more carefree and laid-back: Bathed in sunlight, equipped with relaxed guitars and an incredibly loose yet straight groove, the song literally glides through the heat of the city. With skillful spoken word (you don’t even want to call it “rap,” because singer Keshav brilliantly manages to avoid any hip-hop attitude), the song tells of a sweaty, almost mysterious summer afternoon, where one moves through the dusty streets of the overheated city instead of lying in the garden or on the beach. This is what Timid Tiger sounds like in 2012 …
Video:
TIMID TIGER “The Sun Goes Down, The Streets Are Black”
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