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Twinkie:
Self-Titled
The comparison to the Pixies of any band in the neighborhood of rock which features a single female backing vocal is the ultimate clich of music reviewing. Twinkie is a sort of post-punk rock outfit from Derby, UK with an at times haggard, hoarse male lead and a single female backing vocalist. They call to mind comparisons to any number of bands: Liars song structure sans dance-able tendencies, The Exploder (Richmond, Va) with less screaming, a lower-fi distillation of the mood-not-composition of Refused... I could go on. Twinkie sounds like many bands, because while top-notch, they don't push as many boundaries as they could. They do the post-punk manic thing really well, but they don't take it anywhere especially new. I'm completely willing to love this band in spite of their treading well trodden ground. They pull hooks out of jumbled wails of guitar feedback on "Mr. Pierre," and attach a compelling bass melody to the end of the drab "Mondomingo." The album's penultimate offering, "Tk-1," reverses the vocal roles, putting the female vocalist in the lead and ends up coming across as a more more rockin' Yo La Tengo track. The meat of the album jumps moods and styles but is all centered in well played, driving post-punk. If my appreciation of the re-visitation of moribund styles isn't shared in my readers, have hope. Though boundary-pushing isn't evident on this disc, the talent that could develop into a forward-looking movement certainly is obvious. I'll enjoy Twinkie for what it is now, and maybe all the more if it winds up as what it has the potential to become.
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