Tim Hort’s band The Radio Hour’s self-titled album is a mix of dreamlike musings and melancholy stories. Dynamic guitars and masterful lyrics are combined to produce moody rock songs that skillfully escape getting bogged down in mopey lamentation. While obviously holding the lyrical and musical talent to write complex melodies and lyrics, Hort keeps things delightfully sparse, leaving enough room for the listener to delve deep into each word and note.

Hort’s vocals are center stage in every song. He sings with a bit of jaggedness to his voice that evokes post Bauhaus era Peter Murphy. The vast majority of his vocal tracks make heavy use of studio effects to emphasize The Radio Hour’s almost surreal moodiness. Often bathed in reverb or roughed up further with a slight distortion, the timbre of Hort’s voice changes dramatically almost every song. While these effects are very fitting to the album’s mood, I found it a little frustrating that I didn’t get an honest impression of Hort’s natural voice until the fourth track of the album. On this track, "Chemistry," Hort sings a sweet and honest ballad with such vocal clarity that I was sorely disappointed when he returned to the heavy-handed reverb style the following song.