Twin Tigers – Gray Waves

The freshman studio album from Twin Tigers, Gray Waves, comes off as sophomoric. At its best, Gray Waves sounds like a poor Modest Mouse meets U2, and at its worst (the entire second half of the album), it is a complete throwaway. I finally know what it sounds like when someone gets a hold of today’s advanced recording technologies and only explores one reverb and one distortion plug-in. And sadly most of this could have been avoided if someone had just listened once to the mix.

Any sushi chef will tell you that presentation is an art form. That is why it is impossible to overlook the fact that in its current form half of this album is painful to listen to. It’s like someone blindly applied the same formula to each track: push the bass too hard, pan the guitars into another dimension and add reverb to the point of incoherence. Add it up and you get something that vaguely resembles a sonic furball. I can’t even imagine what this is going to sound like coming out of some hipster’s mono MacBook speaker. The mix truly transforms this from an average album to an average album that sounds bad.

I am tempted to say that every song on this album is just a rehash of the last, that Twin Tigers are still in their garage band phase, and that they are fighting an uphill battle to nowhere. But there are some (albeit few) redeeming qualities to Gray Waves. Unlike many albums these days dynamic range is employed, and as a band they seem to understand that not everyone has to be playing all the time. Additionally some of the guitar riffs are downright catchy – though this goes out the window whenever the lead vocals come in – and draw the listener in. The songs “Red Fox Run” and “Watershed” exemplify these qualities.

Also, kudos to Twin Tigers for manifesting the Martin Atkins mantra “free is the new black” with their EP Curious Faces Violet Future. This is the savvy move that has allowed them to grow their fan base rapidly. And the tour sparked by that EP has also presented them with an opportunity to learn from bands such as The Antlers and Minus The Bear.

This brings up the interesting possibility that Twin Tigers will get better with age – in which case they will be one of the few bands where fans don’t reminisce about ‘their older stuff.’

Tagged as: Athens, Indie Rock

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