'Forget the Night Ahead' was, for me, one of the albums of 2009, if not the last five years. Much as I loved its predecessor, the intensity and sheer sonic force of 'Forget the Night Ahead' showed that the Sad had leaped to a remarkable new height. As such, I make no apologies for reviewing their latest release as a fan: the prospect of an EP of new material and remixes (plus a glut of acoustic versions of album tracks as digital bonuses) as a bridge between this landmark release and the current album-in-progress couldn't fail to excite.
On one hand it could be viewed as a stop-gap release, but on the other, it's a book-end to the previous body of work and a taster of things to come, and on the strength of the tracks here, there's no question that the band are undergoing another transition, and that the next phase has all the signs of being just as good as the one before.
The lead track, 'The Wrong Car' is their longest to date, and is far from a snappy radio-friendly chart-indie single. While it may lack the sonic impact of tracks like 'I Became A Prostitute,' it packs a punch in other ways, a slow-building brooding epic spanning seven and a half minutes. Beginning with a sparse, emotive piano, it soon builds to the wall of sound that's vintage Sad, complete with loping drums and dense guitars. It also features the additional texture of strings, and has the kind of killer chorus that strikes a nerve this band have demonstrated they're abundantly capable of.
'Throw Yourself in the Water Again' is fuzzy around all of the edges in the production, and there's simultaneously a pop sensibility and a darkness and rawness about the track that makes for compelling listening.
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Considering that these tracks are effectively album outtakes that the band held back to rework until such time as they were satisfied, the quality of the material is breathtaking. Hell, most bands would struggle to write a single track that packs s much emotion and force as these tracks.
Now, I'm not the greatest fan of remixes (a fact I may have mentioned previously), but Mogwai's treatment of 'The Room' is sufficiently different to be worthwhile, but doesn't entirely strip the song of all of the elements that made the original. The same sadly can't be said of the Error Remix of 'Reflection of the Television.' Don't get me wrong: as a slightly spacey electro-disco track it's pretty good, but it does sound rather dated in its use of blippy synth sounds. More to the point, the original was just so brilliant in its tense build-up to the gut-wrenching explosion of all-annihilating wall-of-noise guitar that, frankly, anything else would fall short. No doubt about it: you can't improve on perfection.
That said, taken together, the remixes suggest that The Twilight Sad are expanding their sound and exploring new directions. It's exciting to see a band who refuse to stay still, and given the expansions and developments from their inception to the present, this suggests that their best work may still be yet to come.
http://www.myspace.com/thetwilightsad
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