Album Spotlight: The Tilt
Album artwork for The Tilt | Photo by @incrediblealex on IG
I’m going to write about my experience through The Tilt, the new self-titled album by The Tilt, beginning with the album’s first track, “The Tilt.” That’s three tilts if you haven’t been keeping count. Assuming each tilt is 45 degrees, we’re sitting at a cool 135 degree angle. I digress.
I initially listened to the record on a drive from Tampa to Sarasota. I didn’t write down any thoughts in the moment but I can tell you I made this face a shit ton:
Since its release, I can confidently say I’ve listened to this album at least 7 times and have yet to make it through a listen without discovering something new(anced).¹
I love world-building. When the world a storyteller creates is immersive, whether the medium is a book, video game, or in this case, an album, count me the F in. The first two tracks, “The Tilt” and “A Dancing Song,” do just that. I recommend experiencing them back-to-back for a solid primer of the world they’ve built for us to occupy for 44 minutes and 14 seconds.
Let me get artsy-fartsy with you for a sec as I attempt to describe my experience of the first two tracks:
“The Tilt” gives us about 3 seconds to buckle our seatbelts before we’re off floating through some ethereal, dark, misty mountainside. There’s a lot of colors, vivid by nature but perceptively muted by the fog that separates us from it.
The bass line is the engine powering the velvet-textured vehicle that oddly resembles an outfit Z would wear on stage, complete with a necklace across the grill sporting a tarot card pendent. A chunky chain dangles from the rear view mirror, swinging back and forth at 150 bpm like a pendulum, kept in time by the weightiness of the key to the City of Bradenton.
Photo #1 by Kayla Erny | Photo #2 by Gabe Hernandez
It wouldn’t be a The Tilt album without an array of textures, instruments, and effects that make brief appearances to greet you along your journey. I think I discovered something new every time I listened to “Standing in the Street, Staring at the Stars.” Give it a few back-to-back plays and see if your experience evolves with each listen.
As someone who’s cries during the docking scene in Interstellar every. single. time., I absolutely got choked-up listening to the album’s single, “Feels Like Something.” This song is meant to be experienced and not merely heard.
I’ll hit you with a bulleted list of what I loved about it:
The melody introduced by Sawyer (guitar) at :14 is a tasteful ear worm
William’s perfectly hit / perfectly mixed snare tickles the inside of my ear
An unforgettable chorus that reverberates throughout the recesses of the mind long after the track has ended
After chorus 1, we get a melodic payoff where Sawyer and Taylor (bass) both play the aforementioned melody (introduced at :14) in unison.
Verse 2 has a quirky and authentic delivery of the words “dumb, broke, and fucking lazy”
Taylor hooks us up with a unique run we only get once during the second chorus
And the moment my eyes got leaky (2:48)
The perfect scream
Cut time
The I Will Destroy You-esque atmospheric lead guitar
A charcuterie board of drum fills that provide different flavors of swing, drag, and pocket.
Saint-like restraint on the bass proving Miles Davis’ words true when he said “It’s the notes you don’t play.”
At times, the lyrics present like a series of polaroids, and at other times, like Rorschachs. Not just from song to song but from stanza to stanza. The polaroids capture a moment we can visualize and make sense of objectively. The Rorschachs are indirect and ambiguous, seemingly meant to be interpreted by the listener rather than clearly depicted by the writer.
“Standing in the Street, Staring at the Stars” has a few lines that illustrate my point:
Polaroid
“I'm only sure of today with you in my arms
Standing in the street, staring at the stars
Standing in the street, we're only watching the cars”
Rorschach
“Time is fleeting today
Fire is burning away in the shopping mall”
I have a tendency to evangelize of the things I love. I have bombarded my friends with pleas to play Magic the Gathering and Disc Golf, to watch Interstellar, Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance, and Breaking Bad, and to switch to cold brew coffee if they have acid reflux. If I love and believe in something, I will John the Baptist the shit out of it.
So please, for the love of god, listen to this album.
Footnotes
¹ Nuanced. It was a play on words.
