Twin Forks – s/t

Band: Twin Forks
Album: Twin Forks

Written by: Chiara DiAngelo

If you are anything like me, much of your teen years were soundtracked by the wretched woes of emo, the lyrics and falsetto of Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba often being both the fuel and the saviour to your wallowing. Like the rest of us, Carrabba has since grown up in the years that have passed. Now joining forces with Suzie Zeldin (mandolin, vocals) of The Narrative, Jonathon Clark (bass), and Bad Books’ Ben Homola (drums) to form Twin Forks, he has shed the angsty acoustic in favour of lighthearted melodies.

Living in what can be such a cynical world where we are programmed not to feel things or show real emotion, from the sprightly first strains of upbeat album opener “Can’t Be Broken,” Twin Forks transports you to a simpler time filled with wholesome Southern hospitality, sweet tea and the genuine innocence of falling in love. Songs like the sweet and hopeful “Kiss Me Darling” and “Something We Just Know” may be dipped in honey but they aren’t maudlin or overdone, they are simply and refreshingly happy. Your hard exterior quickly broken down, the whistles on “Cross My Mind” and frantic mandolin-plucking of “Back to You” will have you ready to pick up your skirts, kick up your cowboy boot heels and enthusiastically join in on the fanfare of smile-inducing, mood-lifting hand claps, singing right along with Carrabba and Zeldin’s shining harmonies on “Scraping Up the Pieces” and “Something We Just Know.”

The first half of the record is almost entirely lifted from the band’s previous EPs, which they have toured for the past year. Having seen them a couple of times now, the album successfully captures their live energy, merely giving it a more polished sheen. The new material on the second half of the album drifts you off into a more subdued ether, more pretty-pop than folk. While many of the tracks begin to blend together, Carrabba’s swoon-worthy croon on “Plans” is the stuff that girls’ dreams are made of before the album comes to a close with the wistfully silky smooth “Who’s Looking Out.”

Many people likely find their way to Twin Forks through the Carrabba connection, however it’s Zeldin’s abillity to strum her way into your heart that lends the band the foothold it needs to stand apart in a climate where Americana folk-rock has become trendily mainstream by the likes of Mumford and Sons and The Lumineers. There might not be anything particularly revolutionary or world-altering about Twin Forks and their debut LP isn’t going to leave you rocked hard to your core, “vindicated” and “screaming infidelities,” but that’s just fine. It is cathartic in a different way, possessing the potential to rouse something pure in even the most hardened critics: a renewed belief in life, love, and happiness so true that you “feel it in your bones.”

If you haven’t yet had a chance to see Twin Forks live, you might want to change that now as they open for Augustana at The Mod Club on Monday, May 12 – trust me when I say you’ll leave smiling.