Aug 14 2007
Tom Harrison, reviewer
The H.P. Lovecraft-obsessed Vancouver band unleashes another concept record, this one vaguely about a sea captain and mind control involving aliens and sea creatures. Where Lovecraft’s elegant writing can also be labyrinthine and opaque, this album is, by Thickets’ past standards, much simpler. If I didn’t buy into the previous albums it was because there was too much going on. The result wasn’t cohesive. Ambitious, maybe. By reverting to a more direct hard rock, the ideas are clearer and the impact more lasting. Refer to “No Way.” Their best album. B-

DOTHT took 7 years to record and release a follow-up to their concept album ‘Spaceship Zero’, and it was worth the wait. Yet another clever homage to H.P. Lovecraft, ‘Shadow Out of Tim’ is an alt-rock ‘opera’ of sorts, albeit without the consistency or vision of Pretty Things ‘S.F. Sorrow’ or The Who’s ‘Tommy’.

The 1913 Lovecraft short story of alien mind-swapping has been moved into the present, as modern-day marine biologist Timothy Vess is possessed by an alien intelligence, learning terrible truths about life; rapidly descending into madness to a soundtrack of goofball nanana’s, handclaps, whistles, simple guitar riffs and foot-stomping percussion. Any reader with a passing knowledge of Klingon syntax has already heard some of these songs, as the Thickets have played almost every Comic and SF/Fantasy convention on the planet since their last release. Their concert experience shows – while still sophomoric in both approach and attack, DOTH have become much more proficient as musicians, and this CD zips along at an invigorating pace. These guys have learned how to keep a crowd bopping, and surprisingly have managed to transfer that live energy into their studio recording. The narrative content is very much secondary to the overall groove, as Warren Banks’ guitar builds and swells in smashing crescendos, and Jordan Pratt pounds out a consistent rhythmic underpinning that was missing from previous DOTHT releases.

‘The Shadow Out of Tim’ all adds up to a fun listen, a self-proclaimed rock ‘n’ roll tour ‘through space and time, painting sonic pictures of the ocean deep, mysterious ruin-covered islands, and Paleocene jungles’; The insert booklet even comes with an glossary for people who cannot tell an ammonite from a creodent. A nice step forward for the band, and an affirmation for the converted.

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets: Spaceship Zero [Divine Industries, 2000]
Two words? Spaceman rockin’
review on tangmonkey.com by Sean

There are few things more bizarre than a British Columbian rock band recording a faux-soundtrack to a German sci-fi show from the 70s. There’s nothing to stop the bizarre from being wholly kick-ass, however, and this album proves the rule. The Thickets have made a career out of being weird: the quintet from Chilliwack B.C. have released two disc-long homages to the horror of HP Lovecraft, but with their most recent album, they’ve shifted from Cthul[h]u to cheesy space opera. A full-blown concept album, Spaceship Zero recounts a narrative of Clone Hunters and slave ships. The lyrics aren’t any more inane than typical pop-punk fare, however, and there’s far more charm to “Math Song” – whose lyrics are mostly made up of mathematical formulae – than to the latest Blink 182 single.

The Thickets rip through their tunes with noisy precision, the instruments and vocals providing a tight mix of crunchy punk stabs and pop licks. Bouncy drums back energetic guitar-lines, carrying song after song into the realm of outstanding Foo Fighters-esque rock’n'roll. Toren Atkinson’s vocals climb from a dark growl into mischievous punk sing-alongs, and he invests the absurd lyrics (replete with They Might Be Giants whimsy) with just the right degree of earnesty. The Thickets are aware of the silliness of their project – the liner notes include an illustrated short story, and the CD’s got some interactive video-game features – but they revel in it to the point that the listener feels s/he can laugh along with them. Rather than singing mopey songs for the dumped, the Thickets opt to play anthemic tunes to space calamities (“20 Minutes of Oxygen”) or rock out in incomprehensible German (“Dies ist unverschamtheit”). As a result, this potentially embarassing experiment is transformed into a fun, utterly listenable delight, and a perfect antidote to the everyday greyness of life on planet Earth. Outstanding.

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
Spaceship Zero
reviewed by Irving Bellemead
Splendidezine.com

I don’t really know what’s going on here, but I think I like it. Apparently Spaceship Zero is the name of a very strange German TV show from the 1970s, which in turn was based on an American radio drama series from the 1950s. Those wacky Germans. Someone in Hollywood decided to make a movie of the show, but somehow it didn’t work out, which is why you’ve never heard of the movie (although you can check out what might have been at http://www.spaceshipzero.com). Before it didn’t work out, Vancouver’s favorite costume-wearing, H.P. Lovecraft-inspired punk-pop band (those wacky Canadians), The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, was asked to do the soundtrack for the film, which resulted in the creation of the CD currently under review. Okay?

There’s something very strange about this disc, and I think that it has to do with the fact that it’s quite difficult to tell if this is an elaborately conceived and executed hoax (i.e. the soundtrack to a non-existent film), or if it’s just a case of a very good match between a band and a movie. In the end it doesn’t really matter, as most of the songs on this disc are strange and interesting regardless of whether they’re really inspired by a film or not.

So what does the soundtrack to a doomed film sound like? Pretty good. Musically, things stay on the poppier side of the punk-pop equation, although there are a few goofy nods to both dopey electronica and cheeseball heavy metal. The sound and production on the disc are terrific and the playing is tight and clean. Toren Atkinson’s vocals are exceptional, and he manages to make even the goofiest of lyrics sound cool (watch out Thurston Moore!).

Speaking of which, it’s really the lyrics that make these tracks more than slick, well-recorded pop songs. That’s not to say that they’re always particularly good lyrics, but at least they’re always interesting. In fact, they’re often pretty good.

Probably my favorite track is “The Math Song”, which includes the line:

(x[tan n]) – (pi/10) = -9
and is sung in quite a lovely manner. I find myself singing along with “The Chosen One” despite undecipherable lyrics like:

Like the star in the stone Of the elder thing
Like the deal that we made With the morlock king

And who could resist a song (“The Innsmouth Look”) with sexy lines like:

I dig her batrachian lips
Her bulbous eyes and scaly hips
She’s got secrets but they’ll soon be mine

and:

Obed was a sailor,
He sailed the 7 seas
He made love to the fish, he made love to the fishies

Not me!

So…this is a pretty strange CD. On the surface it seems like a slick soundtrack to a movie you’ve never heard of. As you dig deeper, you discover that it is the slick soundtrack to a movie that you’ve never heard of, but it’s slick in all the right ways, and in addition to being slick and really good sounding, it’s also very, very odd. That can only be a good thing.

[The] Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
Spaceship Zero
Reviewed by Roman Sokal
Exclaim! magazine October 2001

Not only does this harmless group pay homage to the late ’70s hit German series, they make a sort of punk-pop-filtered homage to the songs of the ’80s. The anthems are goofy and the vocals are strenuous, and the budget ’80s guitar sound is almost so forced that the affair could actually be a gimmick in disguise. Pranksters or forever underrated geniuses? You decide.

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
Spaceship Zero: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Reviewed by Jason Schreurs
Agree to Disagree magazine.

Only this band of merry weirdos would record a soundtrack to the late ’70s cult television show, Spaceship Zero, 25 years after the fact, complete with hilarious CD art depicting the band as characters in the show. For those in the dark about the Thickets, and surely there are many, this group began in Maple Ridge, BC in the mid-’90s and have since stupified listeners with their strange brand of H.P. Lovecraft-inspired sci-fi rock. Metal, punk and riff rock all poke their ugly little heads out in the Thickets’ sound, creating songs that definitely go over most music fans’ heads. A band for the intelligent but disturbed, this latest album is their slickest and sickest production yet.