Bleak, wailing walls of guitar melodies that harrow and sink and wallow, buried deep inside groundswells of resignation and despondence – it’s not a happy world The Twilight Sad inhabit. With shades of Editors’ grey monotony, James Graham’s dour vocals steeps ‘Forget the Night Ahead’ in a heavy storm of mournfulness.
It’s an album created in black and white; Graham’s sorrow and wistful reminiscence lashing against swathes of sonic melancholy in ‘Reflection In The Television’, bucking against coruscating eruptions in ‘I Became A Prostitute’, and unwrapping itself amidst plummeting guitar discordance – the loose lament of ‘Interrupted’ resonating long after the final, hammered chord.
There’s more than enough intricate layering and arresting soundscaping to put them in the stellar company of Explosions in the Sky and much celebrated Scottish compatriots Mogwai, in terms of creating impending atmospheres. It’s on ‘The Room’ where The Twilight Sad build on the basement pomp of soap box percussion and tumbling guitar, Graham purposefully guiding you into the closet at the back of your mind, each footstep chimed by an echoing piano chord.
So it might be an album for lonely nights spent nursing a heavy a heart and an equally heavy glass of Merlot, but a few more crutches, and a few more albums, as gloriously morose as ‘Forget the Night Ahead’ is hardly a negative. Dive deep into ‘Scissors’ three minutes of – depending on your mindset – white noise wallowing, or the ground-shaking, MBV-esque lurcher ‘The Neighbours Can’t Breathe’, and you could easily start to feel sorry for yourself.
But you shouldn’t, because like a tramp with new shoes, The Twilight Sad are far from beaten; just resplendently downtrodden. And for all the frustration and fury, there’s fight and belligerence and survival.
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