Kate Walsh
Tim's House
(Verve Forecast)
First Appeared in The Music Box, April 2008, Volume 15, #4
Written by John Metzger
Thu April 10, 2008, 06:30 AM CDT
When it comes to artists who have arisen from the MySpace community, the best advice is to proceed with caution. Hype, after all, doesn’t necessarily equate to talent, and not everyone who has used the service to leap into the limelight has been nearly as independent as they initially might appear to be. This, however, doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few diamonds in the rough lurking amidst the seemingly endless stream of MySpace profiles. There even are a few of them, such as Kate Walsh, who need no further polishing.
"I’m stuck on a boy who fills me with joy," Walsh sings on Your Song, the opening cut from her sophomore set Tim’s House. Saturated with longing, it is a tune about falling in love. Yet, the way in which she delivers her lyrics makes it sound as if something heavier is weighing upon her heart. The incorporation of a small string section serves only to magnify the sadness that hangs in the air, and it soon begins to feel as if Walsh is looking back upon a relationship that already has collapsed. Two songs later, she pulls the same trick on Is This It?, though this time, it’s clearer that the disconnection between her and her partner is impossible to overcome.
Tastefully adorned with an array of acoustic textures, Tim’s House is, from start to finish, a quiet, lovely affair that often recalls the sad-eyed intimacy of Sarah Harmer’s You Were Here. Walsh doesn’t need to create a sonic ruckus; she’s wise enough to allow her lyrics to carry the load. The music, then, is meant primarily to support and strengthen the emotions she expresses, and the album, which was inspired by the fracturing of her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, is all the stronger for it.
Tim’s House is the kind of effort that Carina Round and KT Tunstall seem
to want to make. In both cases, however, record company pressures and personal
ambitions combined to distort their focus, causing them to lose their way.
Walsh, on the other hand, carefully constructed Tim’s House in producer
Tim Bidwell’s home, and it was completed well before she found herself backed by
a major label. Whether she can withstand the attention and interference that she
likely will receive when she begins work on her follow-up outing is a question
that only the future can answer. If, however, Walsh never again makes an album
that is this honest and pure, she, at least, will always have Tim’s House
to hold up as her crowning achievement. 
½
Of Further Interest...
Carole King - Tapestry: Legacy Edition
Tim's House is available from Barnes & Noble.
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2008 The Music Box