Band: Timer
Title: Yet Here We Stand
Label: own production
Distribution:
Release date: December 2008
Review: CDr

In February 2007, when the Stoner-formation Moolaj was put to rest, some of the members formed Timer. After having played with bands as Carneia, Maudlin and Mount Venus, to name but a few, this band, hailing from Antwerp, Belgium, entered the FatSoundz Studio in Summer 2008 (recording, mix and mastering) and the result is called Yet Here We Stand. The EP has duration of 43:29 minutes and features guest vocals by members of Daybreak, Maudlin and Mount Venus.
Timer cannot be compared to Moolaj. Timer’s music does contain Stoner-influences, that’s for sure, yet the music they create is an experimental, progressive, atmospheric and alternative form of Sludge / Sludgecore with a darker approach than before. The long tracks (nine to twelve minutes) are pretty varying (from each other, yet also during the songs there are lots of variation and gargantuan structure-changes) and do also implement elements from Doom, Drone, Post-Rock, ProgRock and even Grunge. The variety has to do with the band members’ different musical preferations, of course, and this turns out to be a bull’s eye. The apart structures and the perfect symbiosis and co-play of ambiental integrity and darkening heaviness equal the efforts of international bands as, let’s say, Cult Of Luna, Neurosis, Taint, Pelican, Isis and Mastodon, yet also names as Opeth, Bokor, Katatonia, Ghost Brigade, Transmission0 and Tool come to mind.
Oh yes, every track opens with a short ambiental intro (considered as separated tracks), which come in the Esperanto-language, and meaning, respectively, ‘darkness’, ‘hope’, ‘threat’ and ‘brightness’.

86/100

Ivan Tibos.