Tim Lee - It Stays with me

Tim Lee

It Stays with me​
self-released; 2021

3.6 out of 5

By Jamie Funk

As I’ve mentioned countless times the creative process not only can bring perspective but also be quite cathartic and healing. The amount of artists that create music in order to have an outlet for negative emotions is simply never ending. I think that's a good thing and I think it’s more therapeutic than most things. It Stays With Me by Tim Lee is a release that seems to be about this and you really don’t need to do more than just listen to the lyrics to realize this.

The EP starts with “Save Me” and you are greeted with guitar, digital sounding drum loops. There’s some well-placed delay on the guitar and he sort of laments broadly about life. The transition into the chorus works fine musically but the dynamics are held back by the mix and the sonic imprint noticeably changes.

“Wolves'' is more fluid in terms of the mix. The bass work was great and reminded me of ’90s indie rock bands. “Walking Down These Halls” was the highlight and also contained the strongest vocal performance. The lyrics are very straightforward in terms of the meaning. The lyrics aren’t poetic and don’t contain any metaphors or analogies.

Last up is “What I’ll Always Do” which is the most upbeat and joyous song to me. It seems like this was the song that brought about hope and maybe acceptance.

As an engineer I know these songs would have benefited from a full band recorded in a studio. The drums in particular had a little too much of that digital quality to me. That being said the heart and sentiment was able to rise above these restrictions and felt authentic and honest.

​It Stays with Me is the sound of an artist putting his heart on his sleeve and letting the world hear it. That’s not easy to do and oftentimes artists will be vague about what songs means, This wasn’t the case here and I appreciate that.

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