If you want to see a shoegaze band in Lawrence, you turn to SONA. If you want to see a shoegaze band in Kansas City, you have the highly-skilled Emmaline Twist.
The band has been steadily building up a presence there over the last year (they tend to be festival favorites and got booked for this year’s Middle of the Map Fest), but had yet to play Lawrence until this week. They finally hit up the cozy and intimate Replay Tuesday night.
Every guitarist in this band is a winner, impeccably executing rich full sounds under Meredith McGrade’s emotional lyrics. They’re just the kind of dark and moody music we need in today’s anxiety-riddled climate, with just a perfect amount of reverb-heavy, nostalgic sounds peppered in. If this were the 90’s, Emmaline Twist’s music would have likely made an appearance on the Buffy soundtrack. A lot of bands can’t pull off that type of brooding without sounding a little up their own ass, but Emmaline Twist carries an aura of coolness about them that has us feeling completely unworthy and carefree at the same time.
You can brood along with them in the clip below, or online here.