The latest single from Liverpool indie rock outfit Courting, ‘The Twins (1969)’, comes just months after the release of their third album, ‘Lust for Life, Or: 'How to Thread the Needle and Come Out the Other Side to Tell the Story'’. 

That album was a lean, 25-minute mish-mash of post-punk energy, pop-rock songwriting, and electronic experimentation, and ‘The Twins’ feels like that mashup of ideas spun into a single, three-minute track.

‘The Twins’, which is set to appear on a deluxe version of the album, features a simple set-up of a jittery drum machine, crunchy bassline, noisy distorted guitars, a punchy drum beat that joins the track during the first chorus, and controlled yet passionate vocals from frontman Sean Murphy O’Neill. The group uses these elements to deliver a strong piece of raw, dance-punk energy, an obscenely catchy rock tune that sticks in the mind the same way as any early 2000s classic does.

The structure of the song backs that catchiness up quite a bit. There’s only really one verse, which makes up the intro portion of the track. The rest of the song is dedicated to variations on the chorus, and as O’Neill hammers the line “It's a disastеr-saster-saster like that”, it seeps into the folds of your brain and refuses to leave.

Lyrically, the song’s simple structure explores the aftermath of losing something, the emotions and mental artifacts that get left behind. It works as a broad metaphor for grief, whether grief over the end of a relationship or grief over losing a friend. “I’m feeling so cold / Let the grieving kick in” goes the opening verse, a bleak and sad contrast to the high energy of the rest of the song. ‘The Twins (1969)’ is a creative and wildly catchy tune from Courting, even despite its dour lyrical tone, and with the deluxe album coming soon, we may be in for even more bangers like it.