Twin-Hand Movement by Lower Dens is one of my favourite albums this year. I have completely fallen in love with it. After I picked it up for review it sat on my iPod for over a week until one night I was bored on a long car journey home. I decided to put this album on and by the end of the first song I was completely taken. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep so no one would disturb me. I love this record.

Since then I’ve been trying to convince everyone I meet that they need to listen to Lower Dens, and now I’m going to do the same to you.

Lower Dens are from Baltimore. It would be an easy comparison to say they sound like Beach House, but they really do remind of them. It’s not just the smoky vocal of Jana Hunter but also the whole smoothness of their album’s production. It just seeps out my headphones and wraps its way around my thoughts. In ‘Hospice Gates’ you can almost hear skin graze bass strings. In ‘A Dog’s Dick’ each crunch of tambourine rings out behind a wall of erupting guitars. Each listen brings me new sounds to fall in love with.

It’s a really atmospheric record in that kind of Zola Jesus the sound is bigger than me way, although the vocals are completely different. They lay low and mysterious, drawing me in, trying to decipher words and meanings. At times the guitars have the subtlety of The XX. It makes for the kind of record I really want to listen to.

I wouldn’t put this on at a party, or in the car on the way to Tesco. It’s a late night when the rain is falling hard on my attic room roof and none of my friends are answering their phones kind of album. I want it on headphones. I want to be completely soaked in its drama. I want to drown in it. And I want you to buy it now so we can discuss our respective crushes as soon as possible.