Local Music Spotlight: Twin Void celebrate (being) ‘Free From Hardtimes’
Local stoner and hard rock band Twin Void is back with the long-awaited release of the group’s album-length debut “Free From Hardtimes” and a new regional tour hitting a dozen cities across the western U.S.
After announcing the album last year and touring briefly over the summer, the band headed back to the drawing board to piece together another huge project. The group signed with Electric Valley Records, set dates for the release of “Free From Hardtimes” and got to cooking up a new tour.
The summer 2021 tour “was maybe like a week,” frontman Nathan Bidwell said. “Maybe a little more than that? I felt like, at the end of that tour, my thirst wasn’t quenched. I still wanted to be on the road. Now that we have so many dates, I can really get it all out of my system.”
From April 8 to April 22, Twin Void’s new three-piece lineup (Bidwell on guitar and vocals, Cory McCallum on drums and Mike Bidwell on bass) will play 11 shows from Spokane to South Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota and more. They launch the tour from home, playing the Big Dipper on April 8 with local bands Touch of Evil and Becoming Ghosts.
Their weeklong tour last summer taught the band a lot, so this time they’re taking things up a notch.
“We’re a quote, unquote stoner rock band, and we still have those good values, but we also come from the hardcore and punk scenes,” Bidwell said. “We love bringing in that very intense energy.”
To help make each set a more immersive experience, the band is experimenting with mixing visual media into the set, “taking the performance, not just musically but visually to another level.” Taking inspiration from big-name performing bands, the group is playing with projector visuals and light. Each show will be a multimodal and sensory experience.
The foundation of the tour’s setlists will be Twin Void’s newly released record “Free From Hardtimes,” which is set for release on all platforms on Friday (and no, it’s not an April Fools’ joke; this is for real). Also, Bidwell promises some surprises.
“It feels like this (record) has been out forever,” he said. “We play these songs so much, and we have them so down that they still feel really fresh and fun to play. It has not burned out on us yet” despite having been held under wraps for nearly 18 months.
Ultimately, there’s no time like now. The hard-hitting riffs, gritty lines and walls of sound that Twin Void produces hits harder than ever before.
“It’s a roller coaster of a record,” Bidwell added.
He’s not wrong. The mixed sounds of the record (stoner rock and hard rock are only distant cousins) offer the band a lot of leeway, which they happily occupy.
From the hard-hitting, wall-of-sound that is “Hellcat” to the almost country opening of “You Can Hear the Devil Walkin’,” the record has a huge diversity of sounds. One track that Bidwell highlighted among the bunch is “Sky Burial.”
“It’s about my grandfather who passed away when I was younger” he said. “So, finally writing a song, getting out all of my feelings felt good and awesome. It’s less of an energetic punk song, more of that classic rock.”
Like “You Can Hear the Devil Walkin’,” “Sky Burial” opens slow with a long instrumental section. It builds up from an emotional, slow guitar line to a groovy, still-relaxed and full-band section. Part of “Sky Burial’s” cleverness is its dynamic tempo. To emphasize the main guitar line (an irresistible, heavy and wonderfully simple one), the tempo slows down. It makes the springier verses that much more engaging.
“Free From Hardtimes” is an engaging and impressive album mixing the grit of punk with top-notch production (from Amplified Wax here in Spokane). It’ll be a treat to hear on streaming platforms – and even more so when the band hits the stages this month.
To order a physical copy of the record, visit electricvalleyrecords.com. Follow @twin_void on Instagram for more information, and stream “Free From Hardtimes” now on all streaming platforms.