Culture
Blue Twisted Steel blend Americana and experimentation on ‘Lowlight’
By: Emily Votaw
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – Lowlight is the kind of song that arrives immediately.
The freshly released single from southern West Virginia–based post-Americana band Blue Twisted Steel opens with rich, sepia-toned vocals, followed by a low, continually evolving drum pulse. The percussion develops further, splitting into satisfying polyrhythms that feel like an irregular heartbeat finding its footing.
This sense of adventurous sonic movement—subtle but ear-catching and constantly shifting—distinguishes Lowlight, and the band that recorded it, from the crowded field of contemporary Americana-adjacent music.
By definition, a “lowlight” suggests something unremarkable—even disappointing. But for Blue Twisted Steel vocalist Abigail Spangler—who co-fronts the trio with her husband, Josiah, alongside multi-instrumentalist Travis Egnor—the song draws from a memory that is anything but.
“To me, Lowlight means lying on the warm asphalt of my parents’ driveway as a teenager, talking on the phone to the person who would soon be my life partner,” Spangler says in press materials accompanying the release. “For me, it’s the culmination of those ‘uninteresting’ moments that make a relationship special… talking for hours about nothing, but it doesn’t matter because, in that moment, we’re connected.”
The image resonates because of its stillness. Within what seems ordinary—even boring—something unstoppable is put into motion.
Lowlight marks the first release from Blue Twisted Steel’s upcoming full-length album, Turnstile of Romance, due later this year.
Produced by Kenny Miles—known for his work with Tyler Childers and the indie rock band Wayne Graham—the album shows strong promise.
If Lowlight is any indication, Blue Twisted Steel ground their sound in the spiritual lineage of Appalachian musical traditions while resisting its confinement – capable of creating music that dips tastefully into moments of pop eccentricity without ever forgetting where it came from.