Twin Shadow -- "At My Heels"
A pitch-perfect evocation of an era. Not that the era itself was so great -- Reaganomics, the AIDS epidemic and the rampant homophobia that accompanied it, crack cocaine and urban squalor -- but there's an automatic emotional response at having the past resurrected in such exquisite detail, especially for those of us who were alive and aware at the time, regardless of how we felt about being alive and aware at that particular historical moment.
Somehow the music doesn't end up sounding derivative. Rather, it's fresh, as authentic as programmed drums could ever be. "At My Heels" features the drum machine and the synths that characterize the sound of Twin Shadow's entire first album and some subtle but effective guitar playing, as well. Lyrically, the song plays with the fractured fairy tale theme that unifies the album. In this case, the story seems to be an inversion of the princess-in-the-tower story. It's the guy who's stuck this time around: "Lean your ladder against my window, and I'll come down." It's Prince and Morrissey both at once, the product of a singular, romantic vision. When the song first breaks down to a subdued reading of the bridge, then explodes into a final repetition of the chorus, we become aware that we are sonically in the presence of a master stylist.
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