Full-length studio albums are never easy to put together, no matter what the genre or how talented the act might be. That said, some might find it a little unfair how simply Twilight Muse makes it sound in their latest release, the formidable yet wholly proper A Moment Out of Time, which dropped this June to a warm reception from critics across the spectrum.
While Twilight Muse might be the new kids on the block, they aren’t acting like it in songs like “Destination You,” “Electrify Me” and the dedicated “Oh Mama;” in my estimation, they’ve got a lot more moxie than most rooks in their positions would. A Moment Out of Time is a mature LP that takes from pop, post-punk, and classic indie rock/hipster folk influences without getting too jagged about it, and in my book that makes it a pretty special disc.
There’s a lot of emphasis on melodic machismo from start to finish in A Moment Out of Time, with certain songs – primarily “Dreamspace,” “Electrify Me,” “Are You In?” and its sequel “Audacious” – creating as much of a narrative through primal physicality as they would lyrical substance. Even with all of the meat and potatoes rock here, there’s no filler, nor is there any overindulgence in general, for us to skip over in the tracklist. Efficiency is something that matters to this duo because if it didn’t, I don’t think they would be seemingly going out of their way to make every song here as balanced aesthetically and sonically as possible.
One thing A Moment Out of Time isn’t spilling over with is bass, but frankly, Twilight Muse didn’t need to weigh songs like “Forever” and “Oh Mama” down with any sort of bassline extravagance for us to appreciate the molten-hot swell of the music in all of the material here. They’re a very methodical pair, and where some would have relied on the pomp of an exaggerated bass part to generate some depth on the backend, Twilight Muse makes it known to all of us that such avenues aren’t even worth exploring when you’ve got the kind of skills behind the glass these guys do. They’re guts before glory, and while it’s sad for me to admit, this indeed makes them a diamond in the rough in our modern times.
Twilight Muse are completely new faces to me, having come to my attention through A Moment Out of Time this June, but I can tell they’re going to do some amazing things in the years to come. They’ve got so much elegance skewed with eager angst, and if channeled into the right compositional realms, their passion could produce some really interesting indie content in the next few years. A Moment Out of Time is a good example of what they can do with a limited setup, and with a little more room to breathe in the studio I think it’s clear they’re going to be impossible to slow down when they’ve got a good idea to work with.
Heather Savage
