Twin Temple
‘God Is Dead’
New album release October 2023
Album review by Hexi Laing
Recommended for fans of Tenacious D, The Pretty Reckless, Skynd
The word satanic tends to generate particular images for each individual. For many, these would be the stereotypical fantasies of demons, hellfire, and a half-man creature with red horns and a twisted tail (or Tom Ellis and Dave Grohl. If you know, you know). Still, i’d wager that most, if not all people upon hearing this or words related, would conjure images of dark aesthetics, smoke and flames, and creepy haunting music delivered by the choir of the damned (or the hardcore riffs of a rock off challenge. Again, if you know, you know!).
Until recently, I thought the same for myself. Until Twin Temple came along with their new album ‘God is Dead’. Now all that I can think about is Lucifer leading a demon across the dancefloor while this dynamic duo play them out with one of their brilliant tracks.
Holy hell, where have these guys been? After the release of their first album in 2019, devout Satanists Alexandra James and Zachary James have set out to prove their belief that the devil has all the best tunes, bringing a whole new life to the Doo-Wop music scene with songs that are just as soulful and full of personality as they are mortifying and, as you may have guessed, satanic. This band both breaks and embraces the stereotypes of the satanic with their songs; with cheerful and upbeat instrumentals and damn catchy rhythms combined with lyrics that praise sinning, encourage blasphemy, and celebrate black magic and falling for a devil. It’s weird, bizarre, and goddam hilarious. It shouldn’t work, it really shouldn’t.
But it does, and I love it!
To be perfectly honest, this album had me snickering the second the first track opened with such a cheerful and pepped-up rhythm, considering the title of this particular song is literally ‘Burn your bible’. Honestly, take out the vocals and you could mistake the instrumentals as the backing to a Christmas track, but put them right back in again and you have a song straight from the lips of a demon causing havoc as she encourages you to “burn your bible for me”.
The whole album carries on similarly, with each track oozing with this juxtaposed personality that is one part country/folk/rhythm and blues and other parts demonic and sinful to the very end. My personal favourites have to be ‘Let’s Have a satanic orgy’ and ‘Be a Slut’, the first for its toe-tapping beat that gives me a ‘welcome to Burlesque’ for demons vibe; and the second because the song itself is just so damn cheery and upbeat for its message, you can’t help but laugh as you dance along.
In truth though, the whole album is just so wonderfully bizarre and enjoyable, and I think what makes it even more special is you can tell a lot of time, effort and passion was put in by Alexandra and Zachary to make this so damn special. It’s funny, it’s fun, and above all else, it’s a breath of fresh air to see artists that come across that way so easily in their work. Strange as it may be, it was an absolute pleasure to listen to this album, and I really cannot wait to see more of Twin Temple’s works in the future.
And to Alexandra and Zachary, with you two by his side, I can say with certainty that yes, the devil does have the best tunes.
Tracklist:
- Burn your bible
- (Fallin’ for a) fallen angel
- Let’s have a satanic orgy
- Two sinners
- Black magick
- Spellbreaker
- Be a slut
- God is dead
