Who could resist the promise of “Satanic Do-Wop”? That’s what’s we’re offered here on the debut album of LA’s Twin Temple.

This is strange affair indeed. Imagine going back to the 1950s, as most of us can’t, and listening to a lady singing with a backing band in a smoky club. Or wind forward to Amy Whitehouse. The backing band is part rock n roll, part big band in the way that you hear on the songs of Bill Haley and the Comets (“Rock Around the Clock” and all that). The harmonies are there. “Be-elz-e-bub” goes the harmonised chorus of “The Devil (Didn’t Make Me do It”. Yes, it’s swing, it’s do-wop and when we get to “Lucifer, My Love” it’s corny and moody. Once I’d got over the novelty factor, it didn’t take me long to decide I didn’t like it and I’d rather be listening to Amy Whitehouse, The Shadows or whatever. Or nothing at all.

I’m sorry that I’m not so well up on my 50s or 60s do-wop or rock n roll sound that I can meaningfully compare this to anyone of the era. I can however compare it to Showaddywaddy, which probably isn’t the greatest compliment I can pay. Even assuming this satanic themes, which are kept up throughout, is a giant piss take, it’s not on the level of the Scary Bitches. Is that guitar solo on “I Know How to Hex You” like Duane Eddy? To be fair, the woman has got a good and sultry voice but Amy Winehouse’s (her again, I’ll call her AW) was better. The trumpet and band play their languid swinging tune as the lady tells us why “I’m Wicked”. Structurally, this is one of the stronger songs on this strange retro work. A bit of mariachi gets us going into “Santa Muerte” and we’re back into another cool tune with a bit of attitude, and mock Spanish speaking. “Like dominos, if one falls, the other one goes” must be the crassest rhyme I’ve heard in a while. This gem comes from “Let’s Hang Together”. An appropriate title for a swing band I suppose, and swing it is. It’s a pity the song is a piece of nothing. There’s a nice little 50s rock and roll guitar but that’s about 5 seconds of quality in a four minute song. “Femme Fatale” then shares the same qualities as the previous songs – swinging band, AW style delivery – and with a chorus reminiscent of “Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest”. “Satanic Self Initiation Ritual” starts with a solemn and sinister organ, and a spoken sermon, accompanied by a less than convincing chant from the narrator’s devotees. The narration is clumsy – did we really need a translation of Non Serviam? The devotees repeat “Hail Lilith, Hail Lucifer, Hail Satan” upon instruction and that was it. I thought something was going to happen. It didn’t. “Satanic Self Initiation Ritual” was almost seven minutes of my life wasted. On balance I blame Satan for that.

I’m not going so far as to say that this is awful, because somebody somewhere might like it. Nor do I want to be guilty of taking it too seriously. To be fair to Twin Temple, this is as advertised. The songs have satanic themes and the style is indeed swinging do-wop from the 1950s and 1960s. But why? I can’t see any enhancement or improvement, other than in sound quality, over anything that’s gone before. I can see that this self-titled album might lend itself to lurid live performance, but personally I wouldn’t be motivated to go to my local pub to watch it.

(2/10 Andrew Doherty)

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