Twin Shadow, aka Dominican-born, US-raised George Lewis, Jr. (with a name like that your success in life is virtually pre-ordained, right?) has spent the greater part of 2010 buzzing just below the surface of popular indie music.
Twin Shadow, aka Dominican-born, US-raised George Lewis, Jr. (with a name like that your success in life is virtually pre-ordained, right?) has spent the greater part of 2010 buzzing just below the surface of popular indie music. After escaping the humidity and explosive colour schemes of suburban Florida, Lewis relocated to a Brooklyn apartment where the lengthy and largely autonomous gestation period for Twin Shadow’s debut album Forget took place.
As almost every Brooklyn indie success story goes, Twin Shadow quickly found themselves some prominent fans. Foremost amongst them was indie titan Chris Taylor, (of Grizzly Bear fame) who not only lent his production skills (co-producing Forget) but is also releasing the album on his label Terrible Records in the US. Despite the seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of hipster bands to emerge from Brooklyn, few possess such potent talent and sincerity as Lewis displays on Forget.
The tone is set early with the gorgeously simple opener Tyrant Destroyed. Lewis’ percussion driven melody pulsates, mimicking the heartbeat of the slow-burn love story being told (“I was just stumbling out of a prosthetic love / And there had never been someone so real”). As the song progresses, the (heart)beat quickens as Lewis charts the inevitable demise of said love (“This was love and now we’re such a tyrant destroyer / As you sat sinking in my hands”). It’s the perfect introduction to the heady, romantic and understated 40 minutes of music that follows.
Tyrant Destroyed segues effortlessly into early album highlight When We’re Dancing. Here Lewis displays a unique take on last year’s buzz-genre, chillwave. He takes the greatest aspects of the sub-genre (its new-wave, dream-pop tendencies) and adds his powerful croon (somewhere between Morrissey and Elbow’s Guy Garvey). It’s a heady, concoction, tailor-made for the many endless summer nights ahead.
Despite the ‘decade-spanning’ influences (his words) at work on Forget, the album never feels anything short of unified or current. The dancefloor (albeit circa 1973) one-two punch percussion of the Roxy Music-inspired At My Heels, sits comfortably alongside the archetypal cavernous new wave track Castles In The Snow; it’s a strikingly assured debut.
From the resonant percussion intro of album opener Tyrant Destroyed (complete with Lewis’ soul-baring lyrical whispers) to the protracted slow-dance outro of the title track Forget, this album is brimming with emotion. Without ever feeling contrived, Forget strikes the perfect balance between both introspective and accessible. Hip without being hipster; this is an album without agendas – despite, of course, its steely determination to make you fall in love again.
