Timber Timbre, a dark and intense Canadian folk-music band, is taking a more eccentric approach to their sound in their latest album Hot Dreams.

With slow and eerie acoustic guitar riffs and meditational drum orchestrations, this album creates powerfully quiet sounds that could serve as the soundtrack to a suspense-filled western style horror movie.

Slowly creeping in, the first track is entitled “Beat The Drum Slowly”, setting the tone of the album with a chilling but lighthearted drum and percussion and smooth but powerful acoustic guitar. Low, trance-like vocals ensue.

Listening to the album evokes images of a decrepit, deserted ghost town. A feeling of uneasiness swelled within me as the track proceeded. The second and title track, “Hot Dreams”, keeps the same pace but changes from an eerie monotone to a slow and soothing ballad. It feels equally as haunting, albeit a bit more subtle, as the first track.

Continuing much in the same vein, the jazzy third track “Curtains!?” and the ultra-folksy “Bring Me Simple Men”, mark the middle section of the album until the listener is wakened with the more intense and edgy sound of “Resurrection Drive Part II.”

Overall, the album is noted for the band’s sparing use of vocals. Whether a long musical intro before the vocals, a long pause from vocals in the middle of a song or no vocals at all <-> it’s clear that the band places more emphasis on evoking emotion through instruments than lyricism.

Keeping a similar steady pace right up until the final track, a ghostly and vocally diverse track “Three Sisters”, the sound starts off slow and picks up more around the end, finishing off the album with what sounds similar to a haunted church choir.

Akin to the sounds of bands such as Band of Horses or Iron & Wine, what sets Timber Timbre apart is the focus on the dark and taboo, raised from the intricately instrumented tracks that define the album from start to finish.

Timber Timbre performs at the Grand Theatre on Sept. 13.