Twin Peaks don’t seem like the sort of guys who would fork out $1,599 for tickets to the Desert Trip festival. But, given the chance, they’d surely hop the fence. Make all the “Oldchella” cracks you want—there are still a whole lot of young folk who bow before rock ‘n’ roll’s few remaining golden gods, and in three short years, Twin Peaks have proven themselves quick studies in the ways of tradition. In stark defiance of The Who’s “hope I die before I get old” edict, the relaxed, easy-going groove of Down in Heaven suggests this Chicago garage-rock outfit can’t wait to age.
Already, the band seems decades removed from their 2013 debut, Sunken, recorded when they were still teenagers and sounding very much like it—carefree, cocky, and sloppy. The follow-up, 2014’s Wild Onion, tightened up the songcraft, amped up their attack, and spit-shined the production, suggesting aspirations to follow fellow Chi-town miscreants The Orwells down the path of major-label patronage and late-night talk-show appearances. But with Down in Heaven, Twin Peaks have already initiated the rural retreat that most rock bands take only after succumbing to excess, holing themselves up in a friend’s northern Massachusetts studio-house and turning it into a veritable retirement home for early twenty-somethings. The result is a casual, charmingly low-key set of kitchen-table blues, slow-dance serenades, and unplugged power pop. Here, Twin Peaks aren’t so interested in being the life of party as documenting what happens outside of it: the awkward first kisses, the difficult break-up conversations, the sad walks home alone.
It’s a really good look for them. By toning down their sound, Twin Peaks are better able to amplify the sweet/sour tension between honey-voiced vocalists Cadien Lake James and Jack Dolan, and their more acid-tongued compatriot, Clay Frankel. But even as down ‘n’ out diatribes like “Cold Lips” wallow in cruel sentiment (to wit: “you ought to get yourself a shiny gold medal for being the coldest bitch I know”), Down in Heaven exudes a welcoming, wood-panelled warmth. But Twin Peaks take certain liberties with the past, weaving alternate histories into a sound that’s familiar yet peculiar. Their version of the Stones folds the raw blues of Beggars Banquet into the smooth, falsettoed soul of “Beast of Burden”; their definition of cool is equal parts Lou Reed and Tom Petty. And with the recruitment of keyboardist, Colin Croom, Twin Peaks acquire their own Benmont Tench, swaddling beautifully bruised ballads like “Holding Roses” in soothing Hammond tones or guiding the bouncing-ball rhythm of Dolan’s delightful “Getting Better” with playful piano rolls.
Twin Peaks still flash some swagger between their more sensitive moments, though in these cases, it’s harder to parse their personality from their source material: “Keep It Together” is essentially Big Star’s “Mod Lang” dipped in extra T. Rex glitter, while “Butterfly” loads up on Loaded, copping everything from Lou Reed’s streetwise sneer on “Head Held High” to the “ba ba bas” from “Who Loves the Sun” for good measure. While these songs reinforce a definition of garage-rock steeped in impetuous, middle-fingered attitude, Down in Heaven’s more revelatory slow songs remind us that the genre has always been an outlet for misfit romantics to express feelings they’d be too shy and embarrassed to say in person. In other words, it’s a music for neglected nice guys as much as boisterous bad boys. With Down in Heaven, Twin Peaks come off like a Black Lips that would rather drink apple juice instead of their own piss, and seem evermore willing to embrace the idea that they’re actually better at kiss-off ballads than kicked-out jams.
