Badlove is the first Twin Beasts album since the Toot Toot Toots opted for a name change. The umbrella theme of 2012’s Outlaws makes way for a more sporadic collection of individual stories, but the perspective of a self-pitying outsider dominates. Opener Sweet Marie is a cocksure nod to ELO that puts its woman up on a pedestal, though this is even more hopeless than unrequited love, with the object of affection merely sighted through her bedroom window by a lustful peeping tom. Badlove laments that the seduced sinner will meet with a dreaded karma, Wasting Time is caught in the loop of being unwanted by a loved one and the caustic I’m No Good does little to boost these battered egos. The album gets more carefree and brash as it rolls along in it second half, until Let It Die ends things on a spare, cathartic note.
Twin Beasts is an apt new namesake, as the songs often sounding like a two-headed tussle between the grizzled rasp of Danny Eucalyptus and the milder vocal of Giuliano Ferla (though Ferla manages to steal the show on the hammy, horny Sweet Marie). The backing vocals add much to the songs’ appeal, from the falsetto sighs of Sweet Marie and Badlove’s rousing outro, to the Spaghetti Western wails on wastrel ballad Dead Beat Blues. Badlove is a more causal affair than the ambitious opus that was Outlaw, but it feels more complete and enduring. Give in to temptation; its seductive, seedy quality will win you over.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Best Track: Badlove
If You Like These, You’ll Love This: Outlaw THE TOOT TOOT TOOTS, Hollow GRAVEYARD TRAIN
In A Word: Goodstuff
