Mary Timony Looks Backwards and Forwards on “Untame the Tiger”

An early theme of this music year is that the people I associate as being part of the indie old guard are making more compelling songs than I’ve been hearing from the younger generations. Mary Timony’s newest solo album, Untame the Tiger, feels career-defining, strengthened by the experience she brings to the table — not just as a songwriter, but as a human being who has actually lived a fascinating life that is worthy of reflection.

Timony broke out somewhat into the mainstream with her band Helium in 1993; their 1995 album The Dirt of Luck is a quintessential 90s rock album with crunchy guitars and a sullen attitude that feels like a Gen X time capsule. The band took a fascinating left turn on 1997’s The Magic City, with Timony showing an increasing interest in medieval fantasy themes and progressive rock influences while still maintaining some of the typical 90s alternative style. Most of Timony’s career since has felt like a push and pull between these seemingly disparate influences. Solo records like 2000’s Mountains and 2002’s The Golden Dove were almost alienatingly aloof flights of fancy as Timony continued to delve deeper into the fantasy themes. Her most recent project, Ex Hex, was back to more straight-forward guitar rock and received more favorable responses from most, though I found myself somewhat longing for the weirdness of her other music.

Untame the Tiger feels like the most successful combination of Timony’s many ideas yet. It is listenable because of Timony’s songwriting and lyrical guitar-playing, but also has her sense of musical exploration running through it. And unlike the recent Ex Hex albums, which were more good times rock music, this has a serious personal touch and is at times quite poignant.

The opener, “No Thirds,” shows a lot of Timony’s gifts. The longer run time and her spaced-out guitar playing supports lyrics about feeling like a lost wanderer who still remains optimistic about finding an oasis in the desert. A lot of Untame the Tiger feels similarly themed as Timony balances the feelings of nostalgia and regret with the desire to continue exploring life while solving its riddles. “Summer” is a more straight-forward catchy garage rock song about wanting to keep living in one specific moment; “Looking for the Sun” shows her dreamier side as she sings about trying to find the light in dark times. The saddest song on the album, “The Guest,” is a pretty real exploration of loneliness and the inability to maintain relationships, punctuated by a plaintive classic rock guitar solo.

But what really makes this album rewarding for me is that Timony also mixes some of that Magic City quirkiness in, especially on “The Dream” and the instrumental open to the title track. Her singing has a naturally original and head-in-the-clouds presence that I find hard to articulate — she sings in a somewhat unaffected way that is very distinct and it can work in either straight-forward rock or dreamy psychedelia. Untame the Tiger is a mix of both, often in the same song, and so for long-time fans there is a feeling of everything coming together here in a really satisfying way. I’m not sure if this is Timony’s best album (mostly because I worship The Magic City), but it’s certainly her most affecting.

There is No Point in Writing About This Ex Hex Album I Wrote About

An album like Ex Hex’s latest, It’s Real, requires very deep thought and consideration. To truly understand it, one must have a firm grasp on music theory and history, not to mention the ability to understand the sophisticated layers of meaning within every note the band plays. With all that said, I’ve put a lot of thought into this and feel that I’m up to the task of explaining this album’s unique appeal: it it has rock and roll songs that sound good, and I enjoy listening to them.

This is the second album for Mary Timony’s project, following 2014’s Rips, and there is something weirdly satisfying about how little the band has changed between albums. It’s Real scoffs at the notion of bands “making a statement” or “breaking through” and is content to simply entertain on its own terms without necessarily sparking an array of thinkpieces and discussion. While I’m certainly someone who enjoys albums that require some effort to get into, there is also a place for an album like this that only asks you to turn the volume up and your brain off.

There isn’t really a point in analyzing the songs, which are all in a similar vein of having catchy guitar riffs, melodies, and lyrics that focus on basic themes of having a good time with some slight psychedelic undertones, mostly from Timony’s patented head-in-the-clouds singing. Betsy Wright also takes lead on a couple of the strongest songs, the tough rocker “Rainbow Shiner” and the breezier “Radiate.” I truly intend to be complimentary when I say that this is not music that is really improved upon by intense lyrical breakdowns and deconstructions of its sound. Listening to it does not make you desire to read about it, which I suppose calls into question this entire exercise.

What is maybe worth analyzing is how It’s Real functions as an argument in favor of musicians with experience. Timony has been making indie rock for over 25 years now and this album has an effortless quality where it feels like she’s just writing great pop songs in her sleep. She has already done everything that today’s young indie rock bands are trying to do — she had her great angsty rock albums, her more sophisticated “break-out” albums, and her alienating artsy albums. Now with all that experience behind her, she doesn’t feel a need to impress anyone or prove herself, and I think that energy is part of what makes Ex Hex a refreshing band right now. It’s Real has strengthened her case as the indie rock GOAT, not that she cares about trying to convince anyone.

The Fantasy Worlds of Mary Timony

Last week I went to a live show by myself for the first time to see Ex Hex, Mary Timony’s latest band whose first album, Rips, was my favorite of last year. I don’t really love shows for a lot of reasons, so if I ever go to one, it’s a fairly ringing endorsement of the people involved. In this case, Timony has been one of my favorite artists for years, and it was worth putting up with all the dumb parts of live shows to see Ex Hex’s set.

Timony is having a bit of a resurgence in popularity lately, first as a member of Wild Flag who released one great album in 2011, and now as a member of Ex Hex, who played to a packed house on a Monday night. This comes about 20 years after her initial peak as frontwoman of Helium. Timony initially made a name for herself in that band playing the kind of noisy, guitar-driven indie rock that was common at the time, but she separated herself from the pack with her dark feminist-leaning lyrics and imagery, which was showcased in music videos for songs like “XXX” from 1994’s Pirate Prude EP and “Pat’s Trick” from 1995’s The Dirt of Luck.

Those early Helium albums hold up as some of the best rock music of that era, but Timony’s career gets more interesting after them. In 1997, the band moved in a different direction with the No Guitars EP, which fused Timony’s love of progressive rock and fantasy with their indie rock sound. They expanded on this later that year with The Magic City, a semi-concept album with a medieval fantasy theme and lyrics about dragons, space, and various other celestial topics.

The Magic City has consistently ranked among my favorite albums, and one that always makes me get on my soapbox, since I think it’s so woefully underappreciated. I remember it being one of the first albums that really showed me the power music could have as a form of escape: Timony crafted a complete world of her own, and when I listened to The Magic City, I felt like I was there. It has this mystical, strange, dark feeling I’ve never really heard in other music, while also still functioning as a rock album with real song-craft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBTJJjgkDqs

But while they were well-reviewed at the time, No Guitars and The Magic City have mostly fallen by the wayside, even among the relatively small niche of people who are still discussing Helium. When they are mentioned, it’s often just as a contrast to Helium’s earlier music: “their early stuff is great, but you can skip everything else.” And I think there is a general perception that Timony wasn’t playing to her strengths and indulging in random flights of fancy instead of making the music she was known for that people liked.

This criticism would dog her even more after Helium broke up and she continued to follow this fantasy theme on her first two solo albums, 2000’s Mountains and 2002’s The Golden Dove. While The Magic City had the medieval fantasy theme, parts of it still resembled music from a traditional guitar-driven rock band. When she went solo, Timony went even further away from her trademark guitar playing, instead often relying on piano and other unorthodox instrumentation, as well as singing with breathy and soft vocals compared to her more forceful Helium persona. The reaction to Mountains is perhaps best surmised by an old Pitchfork review, which gave it a 4.7 and at the end practically begged for Timony to get back to playing her guitar like she did with Helium. The Golden Dove didn’t seem to fare much better, and both these albums are virtually ignored now. Timony eventually returned to more traditional indie rock on 2005’s Ex Hex and now as a member of the band with the same name, playing the type of music most people want to hear.

I obviously am a big fan of Ex Hex, and it is fun to see Timony playing upbeat, happy music while being in the spotlight again. But there is a big place in my heart for this stretch of weird fantasy albums, which I think are total self-contained genius — moody, mysterious, fantastical, and truly individual. They fit into the traditional mold of fantasy literature, with songs steeped in metaphor as imaginary elements often stand in for real life struggles. At first, I found them difficult to listen to because they were so strange and challenging, but those traits are why I find myself coming back to them, since there is always something new to discover.

What I love most about these albums is how deeply uncool they are — few artists have spent this much energy pursuing such an obviously unmarketable vision. Progressive rock is often a punching bag for indie rock snobs, and the nerdy Dungeons-and-Dragonsy lyrics and references to animals like doves, cats, and horses made it pretty easy to dismiss her music in the way that old Pitchfork review did. But they are the albums Mary Timony wanted to make, and are an honest reflection of who she was at that time. Given Timony’s early success with Helium, there is something powerful and even inspiring about completely changing it up and making these albums, even at the obvious risk of losing her “cool factor” and alienating a reasonable chunk of her old fans. I’ll pretty much always have time for artists who really try to do something new with their music and don’t give a crap about all the other distractions.

This all gave me kind of a weird feeling when I went to the Ex Hex show — it was strange to see such a big crowd when I feel that Timony’s music has been criminally overlooked. And I couldn’t help but wonder how many people there had even heard Mountains or The Golden Dove (maybe I should have gone around and asked). Ex Hex put on a great show and are one of the best straight-forward rock bands out there right now, but I think Timony’s true legacy lies in these seldom-heard, strange fantasy albums — and the fact that she made them at all is why she will always be one of my favorite artists.