White Fence

“Those who expect Tim Presley’s White Fence project to be an extension of Darker My Love are in for a lysergic surprise. Sure, listen to Is Growing Faith, and you’ll hear the same ’60s love that’s in Presley’s day-job band. But replace the boogie bass with The Velvet Underground and Nico guitars, ramp up the weirdness—you’ll start to feel all the brown acid in your brain melting into your pineal gland just in time for the bad trip lyrics to kick in. That and the laughter, and the reverb, and the echo, and the feeling that this is a nightmare Presley’s welcoming you to enjoy. Few albums in the recent past have had such a bleeding, in-the-red mystery (Ween’s The Pod comes to mind, as does Alex Chilton’s Like Flies on Sherbet, or most of the Ariel Pink catalog). Is Growing Faith has a calm-before-the-storm feel, albeit a paisley one filled with hashish-laden clouds of wonder. Aside from a few well-placed punk drums and vintage guitar sustain that stretches as late as 1978, this could be the great lost Teenage Shutdown or Pebbles compilation, with fantastic, fanciful ballads and faded odes to lost friends all wrapped up in a stoned-ground aural husk rough enough to wear down one’s teeth. The individual songs each tell their own story, sometimes in Kinks style, sometimes like a Voxx Records band from the ’80s, and sometimes like a third-generation Dylan-buzzed teen who only recently learned two chords on the Farfisa. Is Growing Faith is so creative, so enjoyable, so deep, one wonders how Presley does it, what with Darker My Love and The Strange Boys being just some of his many other projects. Clearly White Fence takes some go-go-go with its linger-linger-linger. As Presley says in ‘Tumble, Lies & Honesty’: ‘There is a power in me: I never look behind.’” —Dan Collins, L.A. Record