You ever listen to a sophomore record from a band that read too many press clippings? The kind of deal where the first record was a triumph, people listened to it (and wrote about it on their poxy blogs) and everyone’s head got a bit too big? (Quick aside: We should all be really worried about the viral marketing shit surrounding the upcoming Vampire Weekend follow-up; unlike some of my douchier peers, I’m on the record as loving Vampire Weekend, but the second one is showing signs of being shitty, notably in that they’re building hype with fey pictures of rich broads. I’ll listen and report dispassionately, but it’s not looking good. I really hope to be wrong on this one.) Too often bands strike upon something that works and take a left turn to appease the critics, or the fans or their stepdads or whatever. Or maybe a band only had one good album in them. I’m not going to name names, (cough* CYHSY *cough), but second records suck (cough* Neon Bible *cough) way more often than they rock, with the notable exception of the greatest album ever made, Led Zeppelin II (and Pinkerton and Hallowed Ground and a few others. Get off my ass).
We’ve been excited about the new album from The Twilight Sad because they seemed, to us, to be a band capable of stringing two good records together. When frontman James Graham described the new effort as “really big and noisy” in a February interview with us, we knew we were in for a treat. The Twilight Sad do big and noisy really well; their 2007 debut, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters is, essentially, a post-graduate study in noisiness on a large scale. If Scotland’s favorite noise-rockers were aiming to be loud and bombasitc, we assumed things would turn out well. The Twilight Sad went on record as avoiding the first pitfall for sophomore records: thinking you’re smarter than your material. The Twilight Sad know they’re Marty McSorley; they don’t need to try to be Luc Robitaille (non-Canadians might have to look that one up). The second pitfall, that not having enough material for two records idea, is also one we knew The Twilight Sad could sidestep. They pumped out a killer tour EP after the first record, proving, to us at least, that there was more gas in the creative tank. In short, we’ve long expected Forget the Night Ahead to be good. We were right.
The sixth track on Forget the Night Ahead, “The Room,” highlights nicely the things that The Twilight Sad do well. To a large degree, the band’s songs work in two modes: (1) crushingly loud from the jump, with brief periodic snippets of relative quiet or (2) slowly, steadily building to an almost uncomfortable intensity. “The Room” is an excellent example of the latter mode. As Graham’s vocals become more persistent and portentous (and racked with emotion), sonic elements sneak in to build the aural intensity. There’s a simple piano line (it may well be one note played over and over) through the whole song that’s gradually subsumed by increasingly loud and sweeping waves of distortion laced guitar. The march-like drumbeat gets louder and doomier until, more or less, everything else drops out at the end. Graham’s tough to decipher lyrics (it’s either “you said you fill to kill” or “you said to feel to share” (or both or neither) that he says over and over in “The Room”) add to the atmosphere of the song and the record as a whole. Dude could be saying a whole bunch of things, but all the possibilities are vaguely, or occasionally explicitly, unsettling. “The Room” is a clear standout on the record, but the things that make it work are the things that make the record enjoyable: loud, heavily distorted guitars, iteratively developing song structures and Graham’s dichotomous vocal stylings. (He’s got something to say and he cares about what he’s saying, but, most of the time, I’ll be damned if I know what it is.)
The tracks that precede and follow “The Room” are also top-drawer. “Scissors” is an instrumental track that shows off the band’s chops. The Twilight Sad share a clear lineage with some of their more aggressively shoe-gazing peers, and there’s a good bit of drone on “Scissors,” but they manage to pump the track full of restlessness and power. One could argue that the track serves as a bridge to tie the record together more solidly thematically, a kind of sonic glue to remind the listener that Forget the Night Ahead is maybe intended to be perceived as a cohesive whole (kind of like “Fitter, Happier,” but without the creepy electronic voice.) I’d just say that it keeps me interested and leave it at that. “That Birthday Present,” directly after “The Room” is a direct punch to the throat, working right in the crushingly loud vein; it’s a good bit quicker than many of the songs on the record (it’s damn near a punk song), but it does the loud/quiet/loud thing with grace and ease. It’s also got one of the lyrics that comes through clear as day: “You’re fucking scared.” The middle of the album (“Scissors,” “The Room,” and “That Birthday Present”) is an impressive display of range and skill.
There’s a lot to like about the sound that The Twilight Sad work in. It’s unique and charged, visceral and loud, emotional and dark. I’m going to assume that album three is going to be just as good as the first two. In fact, I’ll be looking forward to it even as I turn up the volume on Forget the Night Ahead. If you’ve not yet heard “Reflection of the Television,” it offers a good taste of the record as a whole. Forget the Night Ahead is available in the United States now, but our friends across the pond will have to wait a bit to get their hands on it. (And yes, I am happy that we’ve gotten something first for once.)
