Album Review: The Twilight Sad- Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave

A small part of me—the vindictive, shitty part of me—would rather write out a review of the Pitchfork review of the new album from The Twilight Sad. In another example of the ever changing tastes and directions of the site, in 2007, the Scottish post-rock outfit where championed by P4K very early on, giving high markings and “Best New Music” to their debut LP.

And now, cut to seven years later, the band’s shift in sound and dynamics has left the ‘fork cold, and they toss the album to known idiot Ian Cohen for a review, giving it a paltry 5.8 and a backhanded non-review to accompany.

Here’s the deal with The Twilight Sad—in the wake of their relentless second album, their bassist departed, leaving the remaining three members scratching their heads as to what to do next. What came next was a long period of dormancy, until the band resurfaced in late 2011 with the first single off of the No One Can Ever No. That album was a bit of a jolt, and a complete 180 from the gigantic, aggressive, cathartic sounds the band had built on their first two releases.

By incorporating synthesizers and drum machines, The Twilight Sad started to mix in more post-punk—specifically a more direct Joy Division influence, as well as pretty much any other gloomy synth outfit from the 80s that you care to rattle off.

And now arrives the band’s fourth full length, the impressively (and cumbersomely) titled Nobody Wants To Be Here and Nobody Wants To Leave. It’s not so much a step back from the sound they cultivated, but it scales back some of the heavy reliance on drum programming, and tries to balance the give and take between the blasts of guitar from Andy MacFarlane with the underlying synth tones.

But what it really focuses on, and succeeds at, is allowing the band to focus on melody, toning back the raw, unhinged aggression that marked their earlier work, and lets vocalist and lyricist James Graham’s thick, Scottish brogue soar.

Even as the band matures into this sound, they haven’t lost their macabre sense of humor. There’s always been a heavy black cloud that surrounds their detached, disjunctive lyrics, as well as in their song titles. Nobody Wants To Be Here is no exception—titles like “Drown So I Can Watch,” “Pills I Swallow,” and “Sometimes I Wished I Could Fall Asleep” are hilariously dark, and are often juxtaposed with the gloomy and icy, yet gorgeous and damn near majestic music the band is crafting at this point in their career.

In a sense, the record is a more fully developed version of what The Twilight Sad were attempting on No One Can Ever No; the same way Forget The Night Ahead was a more fully developed version of the early 20s angst from their debut. Nobody Wants To Be Here is not a fun record by any stretch of the imagination, but buried deep within the layers of guitar distortion and eerie keyboards are pop hooks—just look at the “aim for the cheap seats” anthematic “In Nowheres.,” or the driving rhythm of the album’s second single “Last January.”

The only real fault with this record is that structurally, it loses some momentum as it arrives at the final two tracks. Saving the slow “Leave The House” and “Sometimes I Wish I Could Fall Asleep” for the end, it creates a record that peaks a tad prematurely before coming in for the final descent.

One of the things that the Pitchfork review faults the band for is their apparently inability to find “success” stateside—citing Scottish contemporaries like Frightened Rabbit or We Were Promised Jetpacks as examples; both bands that are apparently more popular in the indie-sphere than the Twilight Sad are (at least according to Ian Cohen.)

The Twilight Sad, more than likely, could give a fuck about something like that. Their album cover art is grim, sometimes bordering on horrifying, and always unnerving to look at. They write lyrics like “the kids are on fire in the bedroom,” and have song titles like “I Became a Prostitute.” It’s not confrontational music, but it definitely keeps a casual listener at distance.

Nobody Wants To Be Here and Nobody Wants To Leave is the band’s continued exploration of what happens when the ugly or harsh collide with beauty. The results are stark, surprisingly catchy, and unforgettable.

Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave is out in the UK tomorrow and in the US on Tuesday via Fat Cat.