Twingiant: Devil Down

I've been on the tail of Arizona's Twingiant for almost exactly two years now and it's been a thunderous journey of sludgy rock that amounts to so much more than simple riffs rolled out over and over. Mass Driver announced TG's arrival in 2012, the Sin Hombre EP continuing down the same uncompromising, yet deceptively melodic path early last year. Both releases were impressive demonstrations of power and prowess and yet the question rattling round my head was, is there enough wiggle room along this band's chosen path to avoid repeating themselves?

"Old Hag" raises the flag, an instrumental track of lumbering patience bringing things to life in a ghoulishly threatening manner; a join us, or leave us challenge lain down as introduction. In contrast "Dead To Rights" and "Daisy Cutter" are almost stoner jaunts of fun in comparison and that's one of the main strengths of Devil Down (I do like the nod to Van Halen's Diver Down in the album art), the easy ability of Twingiant to combine huge swathes of gritty gloom to a broader scope of light, shade and melody. It sounds simple, but so many stoner doom merchants think that to hit hard you need to be heavy-heavy-slow-slow, when in reality that often leads to boredom setting in.

Vocals are a rarity on the album and yet the gruffly hollered excursions make a meaty accompaniment to the riotous riffology; in fact a touch more wouldn't go amiss. However the real surprise arrives in the shape of "Under A Blood Red Moon"; slide guitar and a completely different, dare I say reserved, tone employed to create almost country-stoner. It's an excellent interlude and one which does show this band can think out of the box.

As I said at the top of this review, I did wonder exactly where Twingiant could go with their sound after two excellent forays into the gloom. However the answer is simple, onwards and upwards. Hopefully there's more to come.

Track Listing
1. Old Hag
2. Dead To Rights
3. Daisy Cutter
4. Through The Motions
5. Tiger Lily
6. Under A Blood Moon
7. Devil Down

Added: December 13th 2014
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Twingiant on BandCamp
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Language: english

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