twin shadow: the official ilm thread started by max

just not catching my earholes the same way

This is pretty good. Hooks don't stand out like the ones on Forget.

I have never heard them, but I foud this of interest:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/positive-reception-for-twin-shadows-confess-shows-the-low-bar-in-indie-rock/2012/07/08/gJQAV2SvWW_story.html?wprss=rss_style

Chris Richards of the Washington Post:

The album itself couldn’t play it any safer, embarking on another dead-end expedition to the 1980s. It’s all retro-glassy textures outfitted with lyrics about love’s complexities sung by a young man whose ego seems to have replaced his heart.

It’s bad. But what makes Lewis’s music so interesting is how eagerly it has been embraced — it’s critical reception illustrates indie rock’s sexual double standard at work. Earlier this year, an online shouting match erupted around Lana Del Rey, a fast-climbing New York singer whose background was scrutinized as if she were running for office. When her first album, “Born to Die,” debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard charts, the blogosphere chased its tail in a style-vs.-substance debate that is reserved almost exclusively for female artists. Could someone this attractive, this fashionable, this concerned with her image, this unapologetically ambitious, actually be “the real thing”?

New question. Will anyone bother to ask those same questions of Lewis? He’s an equally ambitious, equally good-looking guy who loves to talk about the depth of his ambition and the extent of his good-lookingness. He recently described his look to Spin as “James Dean in Bollywood in the late ’80s.” Other interviews make him look like a first-class narcissist in ways that are both amusing and sad.

But instead of putting him through the wringer, the blogeratti are pinning medals on Lewis’s chest. He’s being championed as a savvy, stylish bad boy for the same reasons Del Rey was dismissed as a fraud.

They’ve both made treacly albums that fail to communicate actual emotion, and “Confess” is the weaker of the two.

lol great headline, looks like something off the national security desk

that might even remotely have a point of TS hadn't already released one really great & critically acclaimed album

Difference is I really like the new TS album and Lana Del Rey had two amazing tracks and a couple of okay ones and a bunch of duds, for me anyway. I don't care about LDR's aesthetics or persona, the same way I don't care about George Lewis'. His album isn't about being a motorcycle gang badboy from the 50s or whatever, so for me that doesn't enter into the quality of the songs.

But yeah everytime something is hyped there is going to be the reactionary who wants to call out the emperor as having now clothes.

ha great typo

lol whoops

it doesn't sound that different from the last album aside from being better/more expansively produced, i'm curious why a couple of people said they were having trouble getting into it?

Not as immediately catchy/hooky, but who knows, it might be a grower.

bit plodding if u ask me

Yeah, is there anything with the fast fizzy sparkle of "At My Heels"?

http://thequietus.com/articles/09339-twin-shadow-confess-review

re: run my heart

i could just listen to boys of summer?

yes, you could listen to it

if you have spotify for example, or own the record

of course i don't have spotify wtf BUT YOUTUBE I'VE GOT YOUTUBE

Only skimmed it, but doesn't that Quietus review (like the Chris Richards one in the W. Post) not mention there was a previous Twin Shadow album?

Regarding that W.Post article, since when was indie-rock's raison d'être to provide rebel heroes? I really hate articles where an album/artist is criticized for mainly extramusical reasons. I thought the whole "real vs fake" dichotomy ended years ago, at least with music journalists.

I'm enjoying this much more than his debut. I found Forget mostly forgetful, which I thought I'd like based on his many positive reviews (80's-inspired music is my personal catnip).

interesting album

I found Forget mostly forgetful,

http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv149/jwalkhatesyou/sickburn.gif

"forgettable"

i like this whole album but have just abt had 'run my heart' on a continual loop the past few days

Yeah, this is quickly becoming one of my five favourite albums this year. The hooks are so fucking massive.

Those enjoying the Twin Shadow album will probably find much to like in the new Chad Valley record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVj0-E9mIRY

huh this guy is sort of brilliant

duh

Have been playing Confess a lot recently. I bought the first album months ago but haven't got round to playing it yet, I'm not sure what I'm saving it for really.

a cross between Phil Lynott and a genie.

cmon guys you have to admit now the 2nd album was a letdown

nah not even fronting. i like the first one a lil more probably but the 2nd was great too

2nd album is way better

2nd album is way better

― ❏❐❑❒ (gr8080), Tuesday, April 1, 2013 12:09 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

forget is star wars, confess is empire. five seconds is the at-at attack on hoth.

the second album is pretty poor. some of the lyrics are horrendous and make it hard to listen to.

fyi i prefer star wars

Finally got round to playing the first album today (like I said earlier in this thread I've owned it for months now) It totally blows Confess away. This album is incredible! When We're Dancing and Yellow Balloon are my early highlights.

The other day I was reading his reviews on Rate Your Music and came across one for Forget that said, Where did the interesting songs, beautiful vocals, and strange production go? I think they were being way too harsh on Confess but I can see what they mean. Forget is quite unique and just beautiful in places, Confess is way more straight forward and seems a little hollow in comparision. Of course Five Seconds still rules all.

so which one of these albums is better?

recently picked up Confess, and it's def holding my attention, but it's also giving me a second-guessy feeling which i haven't really figured out.

the first is way better

upthread there's an argument about if/how he sounds like peter gabriel. whether he does or not seems a little beside the point.

i forget who argued this (reynolds probably), but there was an argument out there, in the flush of the "80s boom" ten years ago now, that all of the chilly, harsh, dominatrixy, ice queen type vocals that were all over electroclash and neo-nuwave at the time were a serious misremembering of 80s. that the 80s were a time of very lush and florid and soulful vocals; even about vocal pyrotechnics being attempted by people who really couldn't do them (phil oakey, hi) -- iirc the end of this piece wondered when the bigger, cheesier, sweatier 80s would come back into fashion

i have this in mind because it sounds to me like TS is trying to fully inhabit the lame side of the 80s, the grand reach of "boys of summer" or phil collins or even clapton's "behind the mask". certainly on ilm (and in my house) this is a very natural and welcome kind of move. seems obvious to describe it here, even.

to try to put my finger on it, Confess is giving me a play-acting feeling. like running into someone who always cops an accent. like he's treating 80s arena-pop the same way rockabilly or bluegrass bands treat their referent sources. is he a roots act?

"run my heart" rules pretty hard though.

the first is way better

― flopson, Tuesday, February 19, 2013 3:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

first one is better

all right, shit

i have this in mind because it sounds to me like TS is trying to fully inhabit the lame side of the 80s, the grand reach of "boys of summer" or phil collins or even clapton's "behind the mask".

totally, see also rhye and the one vocal track on cfcf's new ep

or chad valley for that matter

i'm a full calendar year behind on all music fyi

thx tho!

haha i am paying extra close attention b/c i have been waiting for this particular flavor of 80s revivalism to break wide since tv on the radio