ALBUM REVIEW: Twitching Tongues – Disharmony
WORDS: Laura McCarthy
Having moved to Metal Blade Records, TWITCHING TONGUES are set to release their third album, Disharmony. This latest offering is urgent, aggressive and gnarly as anything you could imagine.
Disharmony is a haunting opening, filled with intent and malevolence. Pushing into the impressive riffing, this band immediately grab your attention. The vocals are slightly disjointed against the tone of the music, but as vocalist Colin Young has stated, that is the point. However, when the vocals do come together with the music, the tension and discomfort comes to your full appreciation. The musical tone throws itself around and shifts from melodic, to incredibly heavy. There’s something of SLIPKNOT in there, in the anger and the ferocity of the playing, the stealth of musicians and the genuine, frank, spitting anger there is. Within the second track, Insincerely Yours, the vocals feel distant, pained and aggressive. This is the kind of song we all wish we could produce after the loss of love and the resentment and abandonment that brings. The guitars blast through and the drums smash unforgivingly, this is not only a very honest track but one you can lap up in all its bitter glory. Shifting again, Asylum Avenue feels nasty, taking you to very dark and twisted place, universal darkness that we all feel towards those who have wronged us. The hate and the festering resent the chugging, battering loop of drum, bass and guitar, this track is the tonal embodiment of everything unsavoury about the deepest parts of us all.
Love Conquers None begins as something haunting, the vocals and the drums, the acoustics of the guitar are stripped back the tone both primal and pained. There is sacrifice going on here, and you can’t be sure if it’s the listener or the band that are being given up to the destruction of the sound. The breakdown into “love is a lie, forged by mankind” the bitterness and loss of Young‘s own personal experience, as well as that collective feeling of regret and abandonment.
Moving into Insatiable Sin, the album is straight back into the disturbed heaviness. The great thing about this album is that there are obvious inspirations, and then there are parts where the sound just storms through the band regardless of their intentions. They have been blessed by the muses for this track; it hits like a tonne of bricks and you’ll be glad for it. Yet again, with Cannibal, the track immerses you in the noise, the great scope of layered guitars and the drums, always churning and battering, the bass low and constant. Before long, you’re suffocating in the all-out ferocity once again. There is a change again when listening to Sacrifice Me. The vocals seem completely altered, which is really different and fresh, and adds another element to this record, making it more and more apparent this is not one to be missed. There is an undeniable hardcore centre to TWITCHING TONGUES, but more classic elements that come from metal giants like METALLICA or SLAYER are fully realised and very well executed. The track Arrival is the hidden gem of this album. There are more synth elements, taking influence from DEPECHE MODE, and melding it into the bands own unique sound. The keys are beautiful and the eclectic mix of tonal qualities that TWITCHING TONGUES have conjured are a delight. The End Of Love is another more personal track, and while the inspiration is a little too reminiscent of earlier songs, the track itself is yet another blast of weight and meticulously well played riffs, beats and rhythms. Finally, Cruci-Fiction has to be the masterpiece of Disharmony. Vocal harmonies over ever changing melody, both intense and striking, the slow decent into the depths of what TWITCHING TONGUES are all about. The tracks creeps up the power, the war-like thud of the drums and the guitars bending not only strings but your very insides. The track seems to come apart, to embody the very essence of Disharmony, before switching into a piano melody so dark and tender that all the sickness, all the rage of the record is washed into a deep feeling of melancholy and contemplation.
To take Disharmony at its namesake does discredit TWITCHING TONGUES. To create an album this wrought with emotion, energy and musical influence and be strong in the bands own sound is a triumph. Huge melodies of metal icons like SLAYER run through TWITCHING TONGUES as band, while the experimental and personal elements break this record into new territory. A fantastic mix, blending together components of synth, hardcore and metal with all the range and feeling that could be expected of bands with much more experience shows that Disharmony, as an album, is a massive achievement.
Rating: 8/10
Disharmony is released 30th October via Metal Blade Records.
