The Twilight Sad

No One Can Ever Know

This review originally ran in AP 284.

The Twilight Sad have a focused sound—brooding post-punk with desperate vocals and foggy, shoegazing-styled guitars—and do that sound very well. However, the Scottish rockers have tweaked the formula slightly (and successfully) on their third full-length, No One Can Ever Know. Pleading analog synths and crisp industrial beats drive “Another Bed”; the bleak “Dead City” has mangled-metal effects in the background for added harshness; the grayscale “Don’t Move” marches like a lost Joy Division tune, thanks to clipped beats and corrugated riffs. The softer “Sick” is just as effective, however: Gentle heartbeat rhythms and a bittersweet bed of keyboards match frontman James Graham’s confessional, intimate delivery. Fans of the Cure’s late-’80s material (cf. Disintegration and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me) will find much to love about No One Can Ever Know.

Fat Cat http://www.fatcat.co.uk

“Another Bed”