When their previous band Mechanical Smile broke apart Dawn (vocals/guitar) and Murray (drums/vocals) Baxter decided that this wasn’t going to be the end of the line for their music. Forming Twin Heart along with Owen Burt (bass/vocals) turned out to not only be a good decision for their own sanity, but UK rock as a whole.
Melding elements of slickly composed emo-pop with an altogether more abrasive quality to their musicianship, the Scottish alternative rock three-piece have found the perfect balance between rapturous hooky song writing and screamo-inspired aggressiveness, exhibited superbly on their debut EP Progress:Decline out July 1st 2016 via Rip It Up Records.
The EP is a great example of what modern emo music can be. Dawn’s emotional and haunting vocals meld wonderfully with the power of Murray and Owen’s screamo-inspired… well, screams. The trio also display an ability to write an excellent guitar riff. Single Suffocating is crammed full of great riffs which are backed by some great work on the bass and drums, showing they know when to provide a strong base and when to rise to the fore and really increase the impetuous of the songs.
The other tracks on the EP certainly don’t act as filler, both ‘Ghosts’ (previously released by the band as a single) and ‘Young Eyes’ carry the same intensity and song writing creativity of ‘Suffocating’, however the stand out from the rest of the tracks for me is (sort of) title track ‘Progress’. I was surprised, but also delighted to hear an instrumental track from the trio, many rock groups don’t have the confidence to slow, turn down the distortion and expose the finer details of their musicianship. Twin Heart not only manage to do this, but do so with fantastic success. In doing so it only aids to magnify the power of the rest of the bands material.
I know emo can be a bit of a Marmite genre, but if you are into it then I would definitely say you should go and listen to the EP when it comes out on the 1st, or better yet, go see them live on their July UK tour (details of which can be found on the bands Facebook).
Progress:Decline is out now via Rip It Up Records.
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