It isn't exactly what you are looking for, but it would be easy enough to connect a single LED or small group of them rather than a string of lights. That would make it act much like what I think you're asking for.
Decades ago, there were "old school" devices like I think you're talking about. They just had a microphone and an analog amplifier that drove lights based on the amplitude of sound sensed. You set the sensitivity of the microphone with a knob, just like a volume knob. So the lights pulsed with the music.
This "Twinkly" thing isn't that. It's a digital device, using analog-to-digital conversion and then a processor to "decide" how to drive the lights. But even though it's not "old school," it can be made to act just like the analog device I mentioned above. Or you can make it do other stuff, so you have a lot of fun choices.