On the first few hearings, one might be forgiven for thinking that this departure is perhaps a shade too radical, with swathes of richly-layered yet icy-cold keyboards drenching not only the preview track, ‘Kill it in the Morning’ and lead single ‘Sick’, but also opening track ‘Alphabet’. The Cure’s ‘Disintegration’ is the most obvious comparison, and is entirely justified.
The press release tells us that the band hit the studio armed with a new clutch of material, ‘freshly inspired by a listening diet of Caberet Voltaire, Liars, Magazine, Autechre, Banshees, Fad Gadget, PIL and Can’, and that ‘a synth-heavy sound characterizes ‘No One Can Ever Know’, a record thematically akin to the Manics ‘Holy Bible’, Depeche Mode’s ‘Violator’ and Nine Inch Nails’ ‘The Downward Spiral’’. Certainly, on ‘Another Bed’ there are strong hints of ‘Enjoy the Silence’, but it’s no simple stylistic lift, maintaining an identity that’s distinctively Sad, and delivered with a real urgency, due in no small part to the rapid-fire snare ricochets. For the remainder though, it may be rather hard to see precisely how these new reference points sit within the context of the material. The songs all sounds rather subdued in comparison to the band’s previous two outings, the tempestuous assault of ‘Forget the Night Ahead’ radically tempered, partially submerged beneath a more measured, layered approach to the sound and structure of the songs, the clinical, depersonalised artwork on the album's cover reflected in the music therein.
But listen closer and you’ll find there’s a real tension under the glassy smooth synth-laden surface that’s every bit vintage Sad, and time spent with the album reveals the squalling guitars that were present on their debut and came to the fore and hit like a tsunami on ‘Forget the Night Ahead’ are still very much integral to the compositions, just a little lower in the mix, a shade more restrained.
The effect, as on the six and a half minute ‘Dead City’ is stunning. Underpinned by a gritty bassline that throbs relentlessly against a tetchy, insistent rhythm, a noisy mesh of guitar overdriven to within an inch of its life, rather than driving the song creates a layer of tension beneath the sub-zero synths.
The vocals are lower in the mix on ‘Don’t Look at Me’ and finds James Graham’s desperate, ragged pleading half-buried beneath the swirling synths, before the funereal ‘Not Sleeping’. It’s sparse and built around a brooding piano and distant heartbeat drum, and slowly builds before the monolithic percussion crashes in. It’s low, deliberate, and all the more affecting because of it. If parts of ‘Don’t Move’ seem to lift from ‘Plainsong’ by The Cure, it equally features some clanking metallic guitars that crash abrasively against the smooth sonic wash. The juxtaposition of the sleek and the jagged is jarring and provides the perfect contrast.
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So if the Nine Inch Nails and NON citations on the face of things seem a bit incongruous, even far-fetched at first - it sure as hell doesn’t sound like anything on ‘The Downward Spiral’, be it ‘Mr Self Destruct’ or ‘Hurt’ - focus your attention on the textures, the effects, the mess of noise going on just off the superficial listening radar. It’s not as simple or as obvious as all that: composer Andy MacFarlane – no doubt with the input of producer Andrew Weatherall – has gone deeper into the material, and taken note on the way individual sounds fit together to create a sonic jigsaw. The muffled thump of the snare on the closer ‘Kill it in the Morning’ does clearly owe some kind of debt to both Trent Reznor’s meticulous production values and his liking for dirty, degraded sounds, particularly in the percussion department. it’s the perfect foil for James’ anguished lyrics and tense, even tortured-sounding delivery. If anything, the more contained approach serves to intensify the unsettling murkiness of the typically bleak lyrical content, the choppier currents lying dangerously beneath the deceptively still, calm surface.
‘No One Can Ever Know’ doesn’t assault the listener with the type of sonic onslaught its predecessor burned with, but make no mistake, it’s every bit as vital and intense in its suffocating bleakness, and what it lacks in immediate impact it more than compensates in the way it slowly grows and embeds itself in the mind. Given time, ‘No One Can Ever Know’ reveals itself to be a daring, challenging album that sees The Twilight Sad triumphantly prove they can progress without sacrificing any of the qualities that made them great in the first place.
The Twilight Sad Online
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