"Twin Evil Stars" is something of a departure for DEAD COWBOYS from their debut album ‘Comings and Goings’. There’s far less emphasis here on the countrified clash and clatter that heralded their initial arrival.
Admittedly, there are songs that would slip comfortably and unnoticed into the confines of that album. ‘Understand’, for example, with its psychotic guitar solo, not to mention ‘A Good Car’ (a black tale of tables turned that would have Nick Cave sitting up and taking notice – “Last expression on his face was a look of mild surprise, before I crushed his larynx with my heel”), ‘No Mystery/Breathe Pure White Light’, and ‘Good Boys Stay Poor (Bad Boys Go To Jail)’ (surely a contender for song title of the year!). And, lets not forget the almost obligatory murder ballad, in this case ‘Drowning Weed’: jollied along by bar-room piano while Dave Jackson (once of Benny Profane) sings “ I took all our dreams to the river / tied up in an old burlap sack / dropped them weighted with stones / where the drowning weed grows / now, I know that you’re not coming back”.
Elsewhere the template is developed and expanded. Toes are dipped into the sea of psychedelia. ‘Kill The Dream’ is pure psychedelic pop, ‘The Silent Type’ grooves around a repetitive, looping bass-line and ‘Jewels’, with its drones and percussion tips a blatant wink at Indian music – only the sitar is noticeable in its absence.
However, what is particularly noteworthy on this new album is the experiments with texture and feeling that really elevate a hefty chunk of the songs on show. Helping this along is the use of keyboards, effects and the borrowing of loops, noises and noodles that we often associate with the more ‘trancy’ elements of dance music. But in this context they’re thrown into a mixing bowl with twanging guitars, a rock beat and deadpan vocals to often stunning effect.
The opening title track is a fine example. Drums kick things off at a frantic pace, scratching guitars giving chase, desperate to keep up while, in contrast, the vocals are delivered deliberately, almost leisurely, one syllable at a time. There is both an 80’s post-punk feel and a modernity that blend surprisingly well – think Joy Division crossed with Death In Vegas. This is followed by ‘Black Easter’. Prayer-like, it is solemn and severe, borrowing the drone and pulse of The Velvet Underground and bathing them with church organ. It includes one of the album’s best vocal performances that ensures its majesty. ‘Biting The Ground’ starts like nothing other than Madonna’s ‘Ray Of Light’ but dear old Madge could never even dream of the depths suggested here by lyrics like: “My skin a-crawl with bugs / from the cigarettes, the alcohol and the drugs / stared into the abyss again / the abyss stared back, said “where’s your friend? Has she gone? / Now, I’m coming down – biting the ground”.
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But it’s the track ‘Relentless’ that really steals this show. Opening on a pulse/fade organ riff it is soon joined by a beautifully twanging guitar refrain that has sadness at its very core. Another of the album's best vocal performances, it relates a cautionary tale of unstinting drive and ambition erasing all elements of care and sensitivity, distant and cold but with sufficient pathos for you to really ‘feel’ exactly what it is that the bravado hides. Throughout, that guitar cuts in and out like an ache in the pit of your stomach until it begins to lose control, twitching and shaking over snaking organ towards a sonic burn-out.
Not everything here works, but when it does it really kicks in beautifully and it shows a development that perhaps the first album wouldn’t have dared you to believe possible.
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