Twin Sister

Add Date: September 27 

Artist: Twin Sister 

Album: In Heaven 

Label: Domino 

Genre: Pop 

Comments: Though it might not be fair, Twin Sister have been set up to fail. Most likely through no fault of their own, this New York quintet has had the internet hype machine cranked into overdrive, with only 2010's Color Your Life EP and a handful of other singles to back up the claims that they were the next Stereolab, or the next Cocteau Twins, or the next Björk. (Pitchfork, bless their hearts, compared Twin Sister to those three bands in the same sentence.) All of this before a proper full-length, which we now have with In Heaven.

My greatest fear for the band was that they'd be the next Black Kids--the pattern of EP-generating-way-too-much-buzz-for-an-unproven-band was eerily similar to that Jacksonville act, which crashed and burned a few years back--and to Twin Sister's credit, they've produced a very respectable debut. I'm not ready to elevate the band to "pop genius" status quite yet, but excellent tracks like the minimalist dance song "Bad Street" (released as a single a couple of months ago) and the layered, Stereolab-leaning "Kimmi in a Rice Field" show an enormous amount of promise.

The rest of the record is good, if not spectacular, though I imagine that the album as a whole is a grower. Andrea Estella possesses one of the finest voices in pop music--here, the Björk comparison is aptest, though I'll wager that you'll find Estella's vocals more endearing--while guitarist Eric Cardona and their bandmates fill things in nicely. In Heaven isn't a landmark record for any particular branch of pop, and let's hope that it's not a career-defining moment for the band either; instead, this should be the first LP in a very fruitful career. Start with tracks 3, 5, 8 and 2.