Nicolay & Kay - Time:line: Album Review

When I interviewed Nicolay, I was genuinely excited to listen to the Time:Line album. Then, time progressed, and I was bombarded by tons of albums to review, and I forgot about the project, and the concept behind it. When the chance to review it came along, my intrigue was refreshed. Nicolay described it a concept album about the life cycle, while Kay spoke about how, with the changing industry, he wanted to focus on the everyday, unsung hero. Melding those to points of view doesn’t seem to difficult, nor does it seem to interesting in a climate where everything is reality based. Where is the unique element?

It’s all in the album- the album is unique because it embodies more or less everyone without shine, but not to the point of gaudy overly polished garish absurdity. That is to say, it isn’t a good album because its a singsong for the disenfranchised, its an excellent album because it rocks with the core lifestyle that everyone can relate to. “Blizzard” kicks in as a tough first track, with wiry guitars and delayed drums echoing up a chorus of mobilization. This momentum is continued into “The Lights”, a adolescent dazzled by glitz and the bling of “reality” maturation. The simple beat and tight production allow for the track to create a lyrical chasm , like a simple message coming from the land of the lost. “What We Live” erupts from behind a barrage of trumpet fire, ever building the maturity (a theme of this album) from the prior tracks.

The album then down-shifts into a wider scope, with “As The Wheel Turns” and “Gunshots” which gives a warmer feel through lower registered vibrations. It feels, especially through these tracks, that the scope of the timeline has drifted away from a person to person relationship, and resides more in the development (or devolution) of communities more so than those who inhabit them. “When You Die” drive this idea home, and leaves a heave burden on the pillars of the cultures that have cultivated our current societies- regard of whether they are urban or otherwise.

With such a large assortment of commentary on the table, it’s hard to decide the best element of the album. The production is sick- it’s tight in the right places, and shows that Nicolay has some of the best attention to detail of any contemporary producer. They lyrical content is heavy, but not brow beatingly so, which makes it digestible, while also allowing different aspects of the words to drive meaning at different points; it warrants more than a few listens to grasp all of the album. Still, it builds in such a way that makes it manageable in one straight play. Arguably, Nicolay and Kay have created one of the best albums of 2008, delivering everything they promised they would. It’s both a vivid illustration of the everyperson, a critique, and also an unfinished page in societal progress, left to be finished by whoever may be moved by Time:Line’s existence and tangibility.