Twin Shadow

Confess

4AD Records

The follow up to a terrific debut, Forget, is almost insanely catchy. It’s a great update on 80s synth pop, not slick, with polish but not enough to smooth out the rough edges. Even when the beat is mostly a stomp, it flows fluidly enough to keep everything moving very nicely.

Lyrically, a few questions are answered. What if Robert Smith had a more positive outlook on life, while remaining lovelorn? There is also hope and promise. You know what you need and want to do, but how do you do it in a way that doesn’t hurt you too much? There is a lot of Cure-like lyrical style written by George Lewis Jr. who is Twin Shadow, but never quite falls into goth. How he figures out how to answer both these questions makes for very uplifting lyrics, which if not uniformly positive, are more pensive. And at Lewis’s best, with lyrics that cut a lot deeper than Smith’s, but never taking his eye off the ball.. This is a keeper, romantic with a capital R, A winner on that alone, and a really fine album. [http://twinshadow.net/]

Andrea Weiss