Altsounds - Twin Atlantic - Lightspeed [Single]

Now this is a tricky one for me, my band [Dead Letter Office] played with Twin Atlantic at the Manchester Academy last year and they were such nice guys and so good live, it would break my heart if I had to slate their latest single. In short I really wanted to like this song and for the most part I did so all is well.

Lets be honest, when it comes to Twin Atlantic anyone with even a passing knowledge of the works of Biffy Clyro will see the resemblance in an instance. It's all here; the grinding, distorted guitars, wonky tempos and clipped, heavily accented Scottish vocals. However, while it took Biffy Clyro 4 albums of (admittedly excellent) progressive based indulgence to find their inner pop-stars, fellow Glaswegians Twin Atlantic seem to have hit the commercial nail on the head first time around. This is glossy power pop with one eye on the charts and the other on the mosh pit and it works very well indeed. The chorus might never hit the heights it aspires to reach but it comes damn close and there's enough of a push and pull in the songs dynamics to make sure it never once sounds like it's standing still.

Having seen Twin Atlantic live I have no doubt that they are capable of much more than this, but it's early days yet and 'Lightspeed' is an approachable, catchy and professional sounding song which makes perfect sense as a single.

All in all this is a good track (though far from their best) which bodes well for the album which I'm told is to follow in the autumn.