As I was just trying to go to bed after posting my Duran Duran review, Jade Puget (AFI/Blaqk Audio/XTRMST) posted his new project Twinsign with his friend named Shaina Broadstone doing vocals. If you are not familiar with Jade Puget's talent as a producer then I hope that this EP shows you the versatility of his style. I have been an on/off fan of AFI, not all their albums piqued my interest, but when it comes to Blaqk Audio, I am a total STAN. Jade is great producer and can arrange melodies and accentuate songs at the right moments.
This album is not like any of this other projects, the guitar is present but restrained in the back to feature and compliment the soft and airy vocals of Shaina Broadstone, who in the first song "Benjamin" invites you to join her to reminisce about a boy, her memories about their childhood and what became of this person in adulthood. The rhythm consists of simple beats arranged on a drum machine, but melody master Jade uses his acoustic guitar to give this song that beautiful melody that compliments the tone of her singing, it gives the song a feeling of longing. Especially the eery sustained note at the end.
"Spiderlegs" is more upbeat, it has basic drums and a bass line and but chorus is more well defined. Her voice has a lot of effects on this song to give it a more modern dream pop vibe to it. The effects are either autotuning her voice higher or having harmonize with herself on different key parts of the song. It gives the tone a dimension of sound that let's the guitar parts come through clearly without overwhelming. I do love the way he does back up vocals, as he as always does, he knows when a moment calls for it, and shows restraint at the right times.
"Ash and Cold" features very clean guitar work that move along through chord progressions and adding an element of brightness that bring the melodies to the front. Shaina's voice is bit louder and more bold in this track, I could see her doing a duet with Davey Havok in a fantasy collaboration that some of us fans were talking about in the comments section when Jade shared this release on his Instagram. I could see this song being played on college radio or making its way to mainstream radio.
The EP closes with a dream pop song "Burnt Sugar" here the synths here come out, I love it when Jade plays synth, but he is also using various sounds effects to give the song texture. The song has a couple of guitar riffs in there to give the song an attitude to match the lyrics. My overall impression of this album is that Shaina Broadstone is a gem, has a great and complimentary collaborator in Jade Puget. The direction his career has been going gives me hope for music, and her voice has a unique quality to be calm, soothing, dreamy and I hope to hear more from this duo.
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