Slim Twig

Following the release of two tantalizing EPs last year, an appearance at this year's SXSW festival and several breathless reviews, actor-cum-troubadour Slim Twig's debut is less a tentative stab at making a statement than it is the latest evolution of his damaged rockabilly noir aesthetic. Contempt! supplants much of the git'n'synth density of the preceding Derelict Dialect EP with found sound samples, off-kilter riff fragments and dismembered voices. But as in his past output, the role of Slim as performer is never in question. During "Phantasm Inquest," the haunted protagonist has his cyclical narrative punctured repeatedly (and gloriously) by spare, atonal synth wheezes. A reworked version of Derelict Dialect's "Gate Hearing" finds a delicate viola riff being eaten alive by Slim's possessed incantations. Slim has a distinct ability to produce distorted vignettes that reverberate and writhe under the weight of the consciences of their sordid characters. And it's this characteristic that makes him such a compelling listen time and time again.