Tell me if you’ve heard this before: an artist, looking for a career reset after a few big swings and misses, decides to make a real album, a “stripped-down” record, one unburdened by whatever commercial confusions preceded it. George Lewis Jr., who performs as Twin Shadow, finds himself in such a position after a decade of unsuccessfully chasing Top 40 hits. So he “ditched traditional labels, agents, management, and drums,” per a note he wrote on Instagram, kicked everyone out of the studio, and picked up his guitar, hoping isolation would allow him to tap into something raw and honest. The result is Georgie, a stirring and, yes, stripped-down alt-R&B album that’s both beautiful and aimless, its emotional depths floating in a distant haze just out of frame.
In nearly two decades as Twin Shadow, Lewis has gone from weirdo indie wunderkind to glitzy ’80s soft-rock revivalist to a vibey pop impressionist in the vein of Bruno Mars. After releasing a pair of spectacular albums in the early 2010s, Lewis looked poised to become an indie rock darling à la Ezra Koenig or James Murphy, his nostalgia-core new wave as danceable as it was studious. But why settle for darling status? Lewis was not shy about wanting to loft into the pop star firmament, his more recent albums flailing with main-stage festival ambitions, One Direction-style bangers, and airport-lounge anthems. The problem wasn’t the desire for mainstream success but the lack of good songs; Lewis’ foray into glossy pop sacrificed the looseness and originality that made his early work shine.
Georgie isn’t just a palate cleanser—it’s a bar of soap in your mouth. Lewis strips away the kitschy pop artifice and turns inward, siloing himself with his electric guitar and a few synthesizers to sing about his “deepest, darkest, and brightest feelings,” as he wrote in advance of the album. His father died when he was finishing the record, further punctuating the pain and loss baked into the songwriting. Georgie is still architected like a pop album, its hooks the highpoints of pretty much every track, but it’s refreshing to hear Lewis reconnect with an angsty, exploratory sound and to play with melody and texture in clever, inspired ways.
The most effective moments on Georgie fuse Lewis’ pop instincts with lo-fi, scrappy production. “Good Times” and “Permanent Feeling” are potential hits masquerading as MTV Unplugged performances. (He wrote both songs with Sophie Hintze, the album’s only listed collaborator.) The choice to pare down and restrain his maximalist tendencies leads to some genuinely moving moments, the nakedness of the arrangements forcing him to carefully attend to their component parts. On “As Soon As You Can,” a dour guitar riff and amp feedback are ornamentation enough to croon one of the finest songs of his career. “Standing in a Publix parking lot, a hundred-ten degrees/Getting back from Brenton’s lake, pulling gravel from our knees,” he mumbles, a spacy synth filling the dead space behind his voice. Lewis’ writing can leave something to be desired—heartbreak looks like “dead rose” metaphors and “you sure left a scar” tropes—but occasionally he nails the nexus between specificity and generality.
“You Already Know,” which features one of Georgie’s most convincing vocal performances, achieves the balance. Over sludgy guitar, Lewis sings, “Tell me that I’ve lost you now/Call me when you figure out why I can’t be around.” The ache in his voice is as unsettling as it is stunning, sharp enough to draw blood. If you don’t fully connect with the love-and-let-go pathos, though, the album doesn’t leave a whole lot to hold onto. The guitar playing is plain and stolid, Lewis’ voice swooning and rich yet reluctant to leave its middle register. The sadness he conveys isn’t deep enough to drown in, the melodies not dynamic enough to elicit out-of-body awe. But after years of wandering the wilderness of pop hedonism, Georgie’s frailty feels like a triumph in recalibration, proof that private self-reflection can be more transformative than hitting the club again and again, hoping this time you’ll find what you’re looking for.
