Twingiant - Mass Driver [2014; self-released]
Twingiant’s first album, which followed a self-titled demo, concentrates on heavy stoner rock with a metallic edge, burnishing its chunky riffs with sharp-cut bass-lines, low-kicked drums, and a howling growl for the vocals. Good energy is brought to the higher-action sections, and while the lyrics are mostly unintelligible, their delivery meshes well with the general feel of the songs, which are largely instrumental anyway.
The focus on pushing the beats and slathering them with gritty strings leads to some excellent trains of cacophonous grooving, and while each one effectively pushes the last out of memory, the album as a whole leaves a good impression. The biggest downside is likely that there’s not much of an overt human presence in the music beyond the shouting, and while that does have the benefit of gearing attention towards the playing, it also makes things feel somewhat divorced from directed emotion outside of broad sweeps.
