Twice a Man have not stood still for a moment during their half-century of music-making. The band emerged from the Dadaist glory of Cosmic Overdose to fuse psychedelic, post-punk, and progressive themes. Like a Scandinavian parallel to Wire, the band has worked in theatrical, experimental, and pop spaces according to the instincts of its members.
The Coloured Breeze Is a New Dimension finds the Swedish legends contemplating the state of the planet. Things are complex at the end of the Empire. A society that is fit for humans has not yet come into being. As Brecht once noted, in the dark times there will be singing about the dark times, and the band has taken his aphorism to heart.
Heart is the essence of the tracks laid out across the grooves of the album. The songs are perspectives on the damaged ecology and authoritarian trends, but they represent a striving for repair and renewal.
The collection opens with the anthemic “Bird’s Eye View.” It sets the scene with swooping string sounds, a driving rhythm, and a naturalistic feel. It’s a great starting point to survey what “Dahlia” calls “the sacred landscape.”
Things get more psychedelic with “Reality Blur.” The PR material tells us that Twice a Man has been described as “Ultravox on weed,” but that underplays how reflective they are. This song is about connections, and they can be found with or without herbal supplementation. It bleeds into “Unknown Threads,” which draws out a groove into an enveloping, atmospheric soundscape.
“Bird’s Eye 2” returns to the skies with the call, “I want truth.” When you pull back and look at things from a distance, much is revealed.
“Are you ready to fight?” is the question asked in “Second Field.” This is where Twice a Man turn up the settings on their amps and strike a more militant tone. You can’t change the course of history watching TikToks, and you can’t get closer to the truth by being overly introspective. That is the heart of the matter.
As usual, the band makes great use of textures. As you listen to the album, you can find layers in the mix that demonstrate a subtlety that most of their peers lack. The naturalism of the material is combined with abstractions and sonic designs that imbue it with a warmth that is missing from a lot of electronic music. The Coloured Breeze… is an immensely human record with a humanistic message. To borrow from Brecht, again: “Change the world – it needs it.”
