Twin Atlantic - Heart And Soul Single Review

Twin Atlantic are a Scottish rock band whose previous releases, 2009’s mini-album ‘Vivarium’ and 2011’s full length ‘Free’, have been pretty powerful. They are now back with their new single ‘Heart And Soul’, their first new material since ‘Free’ and taken from their upcoming album ‘Great Divide’ due out on August 18th 2014. Is it worth the wait? Not really.

What’s evident is that Twin Atlantic are trying something new. Old Twin Atlantic had squealing and energetic guitars, like a poppier Mogwai, put alongside huge, supremely memorable choruses with frontman Sam McTrusty’s soaring Scottish vocals coming straight from the heart. On this song, the guitars employ more of a laid back blues vibe that makes The Black Keys spring to mind. It doesn’t suit them too well. The riff doesn’t pack as much punch as you’d like it to, and it sounds more like something from a GAP advert than something you’d want to dance to.

As for the chorus, it just doesn’t exert the same level of passion that they’ve previously displayed. Listen to an older song like ‘You’re Turning Into John Wayne’ or ‘Edit Me’ that both scream vigour and dynamism. Compared to those songs, ‘Heart And Soul’ just isn’t as gripping, with incredibly bland and unimaginative lyrics like ‘Open up your heart and your soul, take my love and never grow old’, that feel like they were written for the purpose of the melody as opposed to actually having any meaning.   

This new sound is okay, but just feels so weak compared to their previous work. To make matters worse, it doesn’t do that well at the new sound Twin Atlantic are trying to achieve, so it probably won’t convert previous naysayers of the band, even if they’re into blues. Hopefully, this isn’t too representative of the upcoming album ‘Great Divide’ and we will see Twin Atlantic do some of the things we know and love them for, or pull off this new style more successfully.

2/5

Max Cussons