Where’s the justice? On the one hand, you’ve got Glasvegas: horribly stylised, image over content, dour Scots wheeling out turgid, maudlin tales of the trials and tribulations of growing up north of the border, and being lauded and acclaimed and hyped to the heavens for it. On the other, there’s The Twilight Sad, who are similarly dour and who also tackle the trials and tribulations of growing up north of the border, only with infinitely more passion and panache, but without the image, and receiving the critical equivalent of tumbleweeds.
Ok, so they are an acquired taste. Having spent a few years living in Glasgow myself, I’m acutely aware of just how, well, Scottish, a lot of bands from north of the border are. It’s all too easy to blame Big Country, and to ridicule them, too, for their creating a guitar sound that was like a bagpipe. There is, unquestionably, a strong sense of national identity about the place, and which has a strong bearing on many of the bands the country has produced. I’m not just talking about the accent: not all Scottish bands sound like The Proclaimers. That said, The Twilight Sad are as Scottish as they come. James Graham practically sings tartan. But he also delivers eloquent and heartfelt lyrics with a rare passion over – and sometimes half buried under – music that is quite simply immense.
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‘I Became a Prostitute’ may be commercial suicide as a title, but it wholly epitomises everything that makes The Twilight Sad a great band where Glasvegas are not. It’s an uncompromising beast of a song that bails in without introduction, a welter of dense guitars and pounding percussion that stands in comparison to My Bloody Valentine. It’s dark and brooding and almost five and a half-minutes in length and... it’s blinding in its intensity, and builds to a truly monumental finale of sonic force. Flipside ‘In The Blackout’ is even weightier, doomier, more relentless, more colossal and even more intense. If these tracks are remotely representative of what the forthcoming second album will sound like, there’s a lot to get excited about.
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