Music, Print, Reviews March 23, 2015

New Music Monday: Twin Shadow – Eclipse

by Jed Murphy

Twin-Shadow-Eclipse-Cover-Art-FinalGeorge Lewis Jr., the artist also known as Twin Shadow shoots for the top on his third album, Eclipse. He misses the mark but the effort is not without a few solid jams. Eclipse comes off as an album that feels like a reminder of what happens when an artist is told he can do no wrong. What’s really happening is Lewis is attempting to reach the widest audience he possible can with a shot at accessibility, turning his once chilled out ambience into an almost gaudy pop.

Eclipse feels like Lewis took all the things that worked for his previous albums and pushed to an extreme level and now we’re drowning in it. So much masculine vulnerability, so much angsty pomp, everything is taken to a point where all the emotions he’s trying to get across lose their edge.

Lewis takes a lot of risks on this album and from a production standpoint the quality is the best it’s ever been but so much is going on the message gets washed out. This being said, the album is so close to pop gold you can taste it.

The question now is what’s next for Twin Shadow? Will the next endeavor retreat back to a sound his long time fans will be comfortable with or will he continue to reach for super stardom? So much of his music is about pride I wouldn’t be surprised if all the panning he’s been receiving from major media outlets only fueled him to push things even harder.

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