release date: Nov. 1984
format: vinyl (Irmg. 10) / cd (1993 re-issue)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Gangway
label: Irmgardz... - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: A) 1. "Yellow" (4 / 5) - 4. "Everything We've Ever Had" (4 / 5) - 5. "What?" - - B) 1. "The Loneliest Being" - 2. "Violence, Easter and Christmas" - 3. "On the Roof" - 4. "Call Up" (Danish Live Aid '85)
[ video by Irmgardz... ]
Studio debut album by Danish band Gangway originally released on Irmgardz... and reissued by Genlyd in 1993. The band was formed in 1982, and had some changes in its line-up but at the point of this release Gangway is: Henrik Balling on guitars, keyboards and vocals, Allan Jensen on lead vocals and bass, Jan Christensen on drums, and with Gorm Ravn-Jonsen on 'miscellaneous' (credit notes on the back cover). The band was a blow of fresh air, and something that was noticed internationally, and also in Britain. The band was more or less put in the same category as The Smiths who had only just released its debut album.
The Twist showcases the same type of melancholic jangle pop as The Smiths, Aztec Camera or Everything But the Girl but also uphold a touch of jazz-pop / lounge elements and bits of sophisti-pop, which would be more accentuated later on. It's not really a very coherent album and it points to many sources of inspiration such as post-punk bands like The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, as well as new stylistic approaches of jangle pop. Tracks like "What?" and "On the Roof" are more experimental neo-psychedelic and sounds as if taken from The Glove's debut Blue Sunshine (1983), whereas "Call Up" could have been included on an album by ska revival band Madness. Henrik Balling is credited all words & music except "Yellow" written by Allan Jensen, and along the way, Balling would prove to be the band's main songwriter and composer.
Despite the obvious strong inspiration from other British artists, I really see this as their visionary debut and also their best album for years, although, they gained more popularity with the successor Sitting in the Park (1986). In retrospect, I consider The Twist their overall third-best album.
Recommended.
