First time I heard about this band was last fall when they played at the DenverDoom Fest... I had read good comments from local fellows Grant Netzorg and Steve Miller, listened a couple of times their great debut album "Mass Driver" and then sadly kinda forgot them, being always more and more busy with current affairs for the blog !!! So, when the band contacted me a few weeks ago to help promote their new 4song-EP, I was pretty eager to give them more time and hear how they did evolute over the last year.
The four-piece comes from Phoenix (Arizona/USA) and as the cover and their location may suggest it, there's some slight hints of Desert Rock in their music, but they are developed in a way more contrasted, heavier and tougher manner than your usual warm and psyched-out stuff of the genre, just the southern touch would be more appropriated... Indeed, through the 1st and eventually last song's contagious melodic and groovy hooks, there's basically some vibes of Desert Rock, especially in "Pelisneros" whose riffage reminds amazingly Brant Bjork -period "saved by magic" and "someral sol"- but with a serious addition of testosterones, groove and distortion, a bit like if the "cool man" had partied with King Giant !!!
What can more logically put T.G. in the Stoner/Sludge category comes not just from the fuzzy and intense guitars but also from the nasty raw vocals and humming bass , while in fact the band plays with just sufficient versatility and tightness to almost never be easily ranged in one style more than one other (Sludge, Stoner, Metal, Southern...).
The sound of the band is pretty much the same than on their debut, just maybe a bit less blasting at times but the stomping core of Twin Giant's sound is still present and even more highlighted by a cleaner production.
The following track "Fossilized" has a carefully structured flow - from a lumbering doom riff to a more haunting and mesmerizing atmosphere, you're gonna dig this one.
I've been intrigued at first by the name of the 3rd song "La Haine" ("hate" in french), a bit surprising if you consider that Twin Giant is not a black metal band - hahaha !!! but I have been even more when I heard a vocal sample from the same named cult-french movie from the mid 90's (incidentally the first movie of the future worldfamous seducer Vincent Cassel) inserted in what is logically (or not) the heaviest song of the EP. Very intense and brain shattering with a beautiful solo, it's nicely ramping into a full blown tempest, including a bludgeonning rhytmic backbone.
"Cloacked in Black" is the longest song (clocking at seven minutes), this one immediately sweep you away with its catchy guitar, steady beat and a groove that is unmistakably Southern... the guitars swirl with melody and sheer heaviness before ending in a sinister Doom mood of the better effect !
Ok it's just an EP and maybe with a full length album the statement could have been a bit different, but it's amazing here how each song is given a recognizable quality that simply demands repeat listening ! check this out now...
https://www.facebook.com/pages/TWiNGiANT/118091058248601
www.twingiant.com
