Lush! That’s the word. So is gorgeous, that’s another appropriate label. “Twisted Time Travellers” is lush, soaked in hazy, deep, and rich pop harmonies and running on jangling, indie melodies…actually, the word gorgeous hardly seems sufficient, but it will do until something better comes along. Imagine if the Beach Boys had formed not in the early sixties California but in the late eighties in the UK and had been quickly snapped up by such an iconic label as 4AD before touring extensively with bands such as The Church and Teenage Fanclub. Got it? If not, play the track again…and again until the penny drops.
The Goodbye Radio might reference music from the past, at least here they do, but that doesn’t mean that this isn’t a song for the here and now. In fact, it is exactly what the modern pop landscape has been calling out for: music that is commercial but creative, richly wrought but still infectious, music that reminds us of what we have lost in the pop world’s undignified race to the bottom of the barrel.
And this is a band that has been around long enough to witness such a demise. Before committing to a second act nearly a decade and a half ago, under a different name, they were stalwarts of the New York music scene; they have been there, done that, as it were, seasoned pros, for sure. But now they are doing this, and this is brilliant.
Indie music with real contagion, Byrdsian guitars, heavenly harmonies, not quite dream-pop but indeed dreamy, undeniably power pop, forward-thinking yet echoing with slight sonic nostalgia…there is even room for some drifting horns and breezy brass to wander through the back of the song.
It has the lot! Okay, not quite the lot, but the things not found in “Twisted Time Traveller” are probably not worth worrying about.
