The Twilight Singers
Dynamite Steps
Sub Pop / Tuba!

Dynamite Steps is the fifth album from former Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Gulli's The Twilight Singers collective. It is their first in five years. And it seems like it was really worth waiting for.

The album opens with the distinct, shoegazed synth lure "The Last Night In Town", that is more a promise of a new beginning than a sorrowfull parting. And everything in between. The second tune, "Be Invinted" features Mark Lanegan (friend and the other half of Gutter Twins), who, as always, adds a different shade of nightly beauty to Gulli's otherwise dark work. It is followed with Gulli's probably purest rock effort; "Waves", a distressfull and almost unlikeable track that thankfully is shadowed by the intruiging piano ballad "Get Lucky", that isn't as pleasant as it sounds either, revealing the shadows of a deluded mind.Still, "Get Lucky", and the following "One The Corner", with its howling guitars, are the albums turning point. The point where it goes from as good that was expected to plainly very good indeed, and better.

"She Was Stolen" is a heartbreaking, slow-core anthem, "Never Seen No Devil", a gothic delight with the oh, so forlorn line 'if you do to others / You will die by your own hand'. And there is the closure, "Dynamite Steps", that is cinematic personal rock as fragile and bold as just Gulli manages to nail it.

The Twilight Singers has with Dynamite Steps made another magnificent description of the places in between. The places that ain't entirely pleasant, but in its darkness, it still holds so much light, hope and beauty.

Copyright © 2011 Aslaug O Klausen