It won’t be far into ‘High Tekk Train Week,’ the opening track from Twinkranes’ debut album, “Spektrumtheatresnakes,” when you are likely to think “Holy Fuck – what’s this?” Well Holy Fuck wouldn’t be a bad guess actually, or at least ‘Holy Fuck if they had been through some Battles.’ They clearly share a similar ethos with both aforementioned bands; fusing psychedelia, prog, dance and krautrock to form the kind of sumptuous whole that should genuinely excite anyone claiming, with honesty, to crave refreshing sounds. Impressively, aside from vocal overdubs, it was recorded in just three days by the strangely-monkired Dublin trio, Blonde Fox, Rooster and Auburn Spinner who make up Twinkranes.

With so many genres spliced you’d expect this to be an epic, and indeed despite featuring only seven tracks, it still clocks in at around 41 minutes. Despite this it still moves at a desperate pace; if Kraftwerk’s ‘Autobahn’ was supposed to capture the sound of driving on its namesake, then “Spektrumtheatresnakes” sounds like a high-speed locomotive journey into madness. Someone described this album to me as great driving music, which is not hard to imagine (presuming of course he didn’t mean because any one of its tracks could feature on the next edition of “Driving Anthems” alongside Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bachman-Turner Overdrive). The reliance on steady repetition.

The album’s centrepiece, ‘Fizz nor Feedback,’ is the most brilliantly original track released all year; certainly more engaging than its eight and a half minute length might initially suggest. Elsewhere ‘The Charmer’ demonstrates more than a little Krafty work with a synth and ‘Witch Hunt’ is perhaps, despite the title of ‘High Tekk Train Week,’ the strongest link between “Spektrumtheatresnakes” and rail travel. If Richard Branson ever wishes to promote his train company at music festivals, then this is the song he should use to soundtrack his campaign. Some may cite these transport links as Twinkrane’s problem - that they’re more likely to just soundtrack our journeys rather than our lives (assuming we sidestep the cliché about life being a journey), and finding a mood that this album may suit could prove difficult.

Well anyone in the mood for something brave, ambitious, thrilling and more than a little bit bizarre will find everything they need in “Spektrumtheatresnakes”...or yes...they could just stick it in their car.


Track List:

1 Hi Tekk Train Wreck
2 The Market of the Bizarre
3 Witch Hunt
4 Fizz nor Feedback
5 The Charmer
6 Put Up a Light
7 Spores