Twin Tigers – Gray Waves
4 min read
In the hypothetical zoo where Twin Tigers roam, the climate is cloudy, the food is raw and the roar within the cage is a streaming blend of distorted reverberation.
Up-and-coming indie band Twin Tigers seem primed to bust out of the cage, ready to roam arenas and stadiums, where they can omit over-the-top anthems with their distortion peddles and vocal effects, hoping to satisfy their ADHD needs.
Twin Tigers reign from Athens, GA, the same rural hotbed where R.E.M. honed their unique sound. Interestingly enough, guitarist/lead vocalist Michael Rain and bassist Aimee Morris met while working at Michael Stipeʼs Athens-based restaurant The Grit. But frankly, the restaurant and hometown are the only thing they have in common with R.E.M.’s polished sound and appearance. With Twin Tigers, nothing seems excessively glossy.
The band unapologetically stick to their unpolished guns; loud, dirty Hot Fuzz-esque guns. You get the impression that during recording they used their weapons of choice to rip right through the sound board. The vocals are often indecipherable and the instrumentation is often muddy but the blown up mix seems to be the perfect fix for this band full of hyper-active twenty-somethings.
After listening to their debut album, Gray Waves, I couldnʼt help but wonder if the cure for their itch was a heavy consumption of reverb. What Auto-Tune is to T-Pain, reverb is to Twin Tigers. Much of Gray Waves seemed to feel like an assault on my brain with loud blasts of noise followed by warm gushes of melodious fuzz that penetrated my eardrums. I felt violated through my headphones. Truthfully, itʼs as if this album was made not for iPods, but to be played live which, despite itself, made for a mostly enjoyable listening experience.
I dare call lead track, “Passion Idol,” epic, but it sure tries to be. A mere 30 seconds in, Twin Tigers announce their arrival in a big way. Idol drop kicks you in the face with a grungy wall of noise in the form of crunching, distorted guitars, driving, overpowering bass and pounding drums and reverberated vocals. Halfway through the song, youʼll swear your iTunes shuffled its way to My Bloody Valentine. Twin Tigers is a little to loud to fully compare to MBV, but I sensed some influence.
Their music is self described ʻpsych-shoegaze-indie-pop’, with other obvious influences being The Jesus and Mary Chain, the aforementioned MBV and perhaps even, The Velvet Underground. Whether Twin Tigers will ever live up to those influences is doubtful, but they seem eager to try.
“Red Fox Run” is the second track and is one of two holdovers (the other being “Watershed”) from their 2008 debut EP which launched them on to tours with Deerhunter, Liars and Les Savy Fav. It follows the repeated pattern found throughout the album: mellow verses and energetic choruses. Even though much of this track (and much of the entire album) has indecipherable lyrics, the one you understand is the belted out chorus “I want you in my car, I want you in my car.” One doesnʼt need to know any other lyrics than that. You get the point.
“Sexless Love” is a plausible alt-rock song until you get to the chorus which seems a little off. The ending is an unadulterated chaotic mess. Lead singer Rain exudes boisterous, animated vocals – then everything crashes.
Itʼs a blessing that the next track (album namesake “Gray Waves”) allows the listener to catch his respective breath, with a quiet, melodic one minute and 40 second introduction. This title track slowly builds as Rain bleeds out “Do you want to know? Do you really want to know?” over the line “I’ll Get Something in Return.” I found myself not really caring about what this song or every other song was about, but the entertaining arrangements seemed to keep my attention.
“Island” turned out to be a gem at the completion of the album. Despite its awful mix I was able to decipher one final lyric: “Jesus please just give me patience / This is all that I am.” That sums up the album. Gritty, messy, muddy music. Take it or leave it. It is what it is: psych-shoegazeindie-pop, in its rawest form. This is who Twin Tigers are. You get the feeling that they have no doubt chiseled their sound of loud art in the bars and clubs back in Athens. Gray Waves – the mess that it is – is their chance to get out of the zoo. And escaped they have – as theyʼve recently played shows at SXSW in Austin, but time will tell if anybody will care that theyʼve broken out.
