Some posts before, I was talking about how The Twilight Sad’s ‘I Became a Prostitute’ has the great quality of bringing out emotions that will stick around. The rest of the band’s sophomore album, ‘Forget the Night Ahead’, does the exact same thing. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, a hole in your stomach, and so on.
And you know it’ll do this only by glancing at James Graham’s lyrics. There’s pain and angst (after all, the writing was done under the influence of a loss). There are also almost everywhere lost, lonely, isolated or hopeless characters like the girl with fingers in eyelids on ‘I Became…’ or the grandson whose toy watches from a corner on ‘That Room’, people whose world has been turned upside down. People who, like Graham, wish the day would end before it even starts.
Add to those words the instrumentals and it’s all too much to bear. There are the obvious Sonic Youth (‘Seven Years of Letters’ starts of as ‘Schizophrenia’s little sister) and MBV-styled guitars. There are, of course, the epic over-the-top-loud songs that have a moment of clam to anticipate the storm and which only add anger to the pain of the lyrics(‘That Birthday Present’ stands out as Twilight Sad’s most punk song). And then there are songs like ‘That Room’ on which the tension builds steadily and the sonic elements (a simple piano line, pounding drums, a web of tiny distorts) creep their way in the whole structure of the song. The vocals do not fail you: Graham means what he sings and cares about it. He puts passion and it almost doesn’t matter that his thick Scottish accent makes it hard for one to understand what he says after one play alone.
We had to wait for two years for a second album, but ‘Forget the Night Ahead’ delivers: it’s dark and emotional, loud and heartfelt. It is a strong sophomore that resizes to the expectations and displays more than enough musical skill.
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