At some levels Twingiant and Into the Storm are similar, but there are distinct differences as well. While Arizona’s Twingiant are more of a stoner doomy type of metal, Seattle’s Into the Storm play atmospheric sludgy heavy music including slight touches of hardcore.
After successful release of their latest albums, both bands now team up for a split album. Their music forms a consistent record, even if it is a split one, bringing tons and tons of heavy chunky guitar riffs.
Twingiant/Into the Storm split contains four songs, around 18 minutes long, with each band supplying two songs, filling their own side.
On Twingiant’s side everything seems not changed that much since they released their brilliant second album Devil Down, which came out back in 2014. Twingiant’s music is a great fusion of ’70s doom heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Pentagram and Saint Vitus with recognizable influences from ’60s and ’70s stoner blues rock acts such as Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly, Leaf Hound among many others.
This fusion gets more interesting when the aggressive voice of Jarrod Leblanc completes the total heaviness of the songs. Not satisfied to keep the music on stoner metal ground, he adds loads of death ‘n’ roll feelings to it. This split album totally displays how Twingiant’s guitar riffs got chunkier and more melodic and Leblanc’s voice became a bit bolder and more vigorous, which reminds of Jan-Chris de Koeijer and Gorefest mid-era, back in their Soul Survivor days.
As mentioned, Twingiant’s music hasn’t changed dramatically since Devil Down, but all these minor alterations have kept Twingiant music alive and refreshing. “Poison Control Party Line” is definitely one of the greatest pieces they have ever written.
On the In the Storm side, things are more forceful, intense and dynamic. Both songs are taken from their acclaimed Where the Merfalo Roam, and both are between three to four minutes, but you can hear so many ideas they’ve put on each piece. While it seems everything are a bit filthier and darker than Twingiant’s, the band delivers strong and thick guitar works and hard hitting drum parts which doesn’t leave their music sounding just as a sludge metal, leading their music to a punishing distinctive hardcore post-metal opus.
The Twingiant and Into the Storm split is fun and amusing. The music and vibe are groovy and striking, and brilliant guitar work is laid down here. The split might be sufficient for a brief introduction, but not enough to know how powerful and well-done these two bands’ music is.
(released January 20, 2017 on Tridroid Records)
