George Lewis Jr. (AKA Twin Shadow) is most certainly very confident. That being said does this trait allow for the enigmatic front man/multi-instrumentalist/producer/badass to dazzle and entertain us for a full 40 minutes once again?
If there’s one thing 2010’s Forget did is entertain. I always felt as if a sumptuous hook was waiting for the listener around every corner, and what made the LP special for me was how these hooks seemingly arose out of a theme wrought with frailty. The album gave me the impression that George was holding back to an extent, withdrawing when he’d rather erupt, but this might have been because of help from an outside producer, Grizzly Bear member Chris Taylor. I thus regard Confess as an LP with George unshackled from whatever it was holding him back (one need only look at the differences in album cover between his first and second LP to understand he’s become a dude, or always was a dude, with very few inhibitions).
Confess sees George producing by himself and controlling his drug habits somewhat, but this proves a deadly combination. My first impression of this album was, “I thought I’d turned off Miami Vice…”, but repeat listens exposed me to how dedicated this man is to his craft. To produce something so intricate, layered, and detailed alone only vaguely illustrates my point. Regardless, onwards to the album review.
Confess is a quite a rousing experience, the tracks on this LP don’t seem to follow any sort of overarching theme but instead feel solid, compact, and most importantly, catchy. Well, I can say that for a select few songs anyway. George has broken the 8 minute mark with one of his tracks on this LP and suffice to say, he doesn’t seem to have an LCD Soundsystem-like ability to keep me entertained for that long. The man knows how to introduce himself quickly, explode into a mesmerizing hook, and go on to introduce a few more before he retires. This technique of song writing doesn’t fare too well with extended tracks that feature slower tempo’s and a slightly more grandiose method of projecting his voice.
That being said if I were to review this album by what I’d come back to it for I’d be bottlenecking the scope of this LP, thus, the longer tracks (heck even the shorter tracks that see George attempting to construct a song slowly) pull me away from this album somewhat. Regardless of this direction of piece construction I definitely see myself in 2 to 3 years still listening to my favorites from this record!
6/10
