Release Date: September 27, 2011
There are some bands that rip one’s heart into pieces and leave a person inwardly sobbing, thanking the unknowable forces above and below for allowing humans to revel in the experience of listening. And there are other bands that are great for, say, Sofia Coppola films.
Long Island-based Twin Sister has been getting some good buzz as of late, which is slightly disconcerting. Based on their latest release, In Heaven, it seems as though they belong more in the latter category—certainly not the first.
Coppola’s films are wonderful. They’re dreamy, lush, other-worldly, highly self-contained and slightly repressed in an exciting way, with just the perfect amounts of silence and oddness. Her music choices add a significant amount to the aura of her films; the subdued shoegaze quality of her soundtracks have helped to solidify her highly specific tone as auteur. Twin Sister has a lot of those same good qualities—they, too, are dreamy, lush, repressed and ripe for cultivating dazes—but the extent of their simplicity is, frankly, a little boring.
In Heaven is nothing if not simple. The percussion is straight and on-the-beat in every single song, and the instrumental details are sparse and small-sounding. The vocals (from both lead singer Andrea Estella and singer/guitarist Eric Cardona) are equally small and close to us and have the quality that is the exact opposite of vibrato. Not that they don’t do this well—Twin Sister sounds confident in their pillowy basicness, à la Sneaker Pimps, The Radio Dept. or Cocteau Twins. There are some lovely moments on this album, such as the sustained soft vocals, inward intensity and ethereal harmonies on “Kimmi in a Rice Field,” a song that sounds a bit like Sigur Ros’ more structurally basic moments.
One element that sets In Heaven apart—and not in a great way—is the addition of camp on top of this sleepy, kewpie-doll rock.
Twin Sister has some kitschy disco that shows up relatively often on this album, which is presumably meant to be endearing in a hip and/or conscious way, but instead leads to some flat, sometimes lackluster territory. Paired with its own restraint, the kitsch often forces Twin Sister to sound like an opening jam band in a jazz funk club on a slow Monday night. This feeling is most recognizable in a piece such as “Bad Street,” which features such static lyrics as “Bad house/Bad street/Big hands/Big feet/Got a car/Big big/Bad boy/Bad streak.”
The one song that even slightly approached a little much-needed chaos is “Spain,” the middle of which features some dysfunction, raw melodic emotion and—finally—lack of restraint. That’s good news for a song that would otherwise have remained all too reminiscent of a James Bond theme song—female kitten voice and all—minus the arousal.
Again, aura of dazed simplicity is one Twin Sister does pretty well. The slow, peaceful ending to “Eastern Green”—and thus the entire album—is gorgeous, featuring whispers of vocals, piano, bass, guitar and quiet windy effects. It seems very likely, though, that Twin Sister will turn out to be a band we’ll admit to knowing and liking while we confidently nod and shrug to one another. We might even go to a show of theirs and say it was a solid one, but our hearts, our lives, and our feelings will remain unharmed, and thus ultimately unfixed. In other words, In Heaven is put together well and definitely is what it set out to be, but if you’re seeking out sounds to feel and react to viscerally, do not be surprised when not much of anything happens at all.
Twin Sister – In Heaven tracklist:
- “Daniel”
- “Stop”
- “Bad Street”
- “Space Babe”
- “Kimmi in a Rice Field”
- “Luna’s Theme”
- “Spain”
- “Gene Ciampi”
- “Saturday Sunday”
- “Eastern Green”
