Twin Temple’s debut album is the sound of Amy Winehouse worshipping Satan

Guitar music has a long and storied relationship with the horned one, from Hell Hound On My Trail to Sympathy For The Devil. But, as we well know, it’s heavy metal that really took the Satanic baton and ran with it. Twin Temple – husband-and-wife duo Alexandra and Zachary James – are about as far away from death, black and thrash metal as you could reasonably get, but their debut LP, Twin Temple (Bring You Their Signature Sound... Satanic Doo-Wop), is arguably more perverse than the stock Christ-baiting clichés that their distant denim’n’spikes cousins might be peddling.

Theirs is a sleek and sultry sound that might’ve sold its soul to the devil but owes its musical eye teeth to doo-wop golden oldies and 60s rock’n’roll, dispensing with tales of doe-eyed teen love (unless you count ‘let’s hang together in unholy matrimony’…) for songs of sex, sacrifice and self-empowerment. The music is dark, lush and heady as incense, formed of sashaying rhythms, grandiose brass and snakelike steel guitar, with Alexandra James’ seductive voice binding everything together. Her croons trickle like black wax from a ritual candle, offering sensual, crushed-velvet odes to a Satan who’s less the cackling Tim Curry of Legend than the louche elegance of Robert De Niro in Angel Heart.

Rise Above’s decision to reissue this debut will doubtless stir division and debate, but while there’s a clear genetic link to labelmates like Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats or Blood Ceremony, the wider question is what could be more subversive than the chance to lure staid suburban squares with a comfortably timeless sound that conveys tales of independence, free will and Satanic feminism? After all, if the devil truly wanted to ensnare more souls wouldn’t this be his chosen vessel, rather than forcing would-be acolytes to trawl the internet’s seven circles for a rare Beherit practice session?