James Graham on the new Twilight Sad album Forget the Night Ahead

So pervasive have The Twilight Sad been over the past few years it's difficult to think of them as a one album band. Yet that's exactly what the Kilsyth quartet are - well, for the next three weeks anyway.

So, before the October release of the bleakly entitled Forget the Night Ahead, band frontman James Graham takes us through a track-by-track account of that 'difficult' second album....

Sourced from the Under the Radar music blog

Reflection Of The Television

This song wasn't fully formed until we went into the studio. We had the vocal melody and a basic guitar line. It was one of those songs where you take it into the studio and you don't really know what's going to happen with it, which is pretty exciting and scary at the same time. Fortunately for us it turned out pretty good and as soon as it all came together we knew it was going to be at the start of the album. The drums are pretty huge and lyrically it revolves around the lyric "There's people downstairs, I'm more than a fighter you know" - take from that what you will.

I Became A Prostitute

This song was pretty much fully formed when we took it into the studio. We knew it would be the first single taken from the album. It was probably not a great idea to call it 'I Became A Prostitute' for stuff like radio, press etc. To be honest I don't see what the fuss is, it is the politically correct term for a lady of the night. The title has no sexual connotations, it's a metaphor for becoming something that you don't want to become and there is nothing you can do about it.

Seven Years Of Letters

This was one of the first songs we wrote for the album and is the second single (19 October). It's got our first guitar solo I think, well as close as we can get to having a guitar solo in a song. The lyrics in the song revolve around running away from things and people. It's a song that we have played live for about a year now and always seemed to go down well at gigs, especially on our tour of America with Mogwai.

Made To Disappear

This song has the album title in the lyrics and really came together in the studio. I don't really remember writing it, but it was always going to be on the record. This song probably has the darkest lyrics on the album.

Scissors

Scissors is an instrumental. Don't really know what instruments are on it, it's pretty intense and one of my favourites on the album, as I don't sing on it. We felt it was important to have instrumentals that helped the album flow and so it was more than just a collection of songs.

The Room

This was originally untitled '27' from our The Twilight Sad Killed My Parents And Hit The Road EP for the two Mogwai tours we did. It was the first song written for this record and has taken many forms over its two years of existence. We knew it was a good song but it took us some time to realize that we just had to let the song speak for itself instead of trying to complicate it. It was written during a particularly dark time as well.

That Birthday Present

It's the fastest song we have ever written and will probably ever write. It features Laura from My Latest Novel on violin. It's the complete opposite to 'The Room' as it hits you between the eyes straight away with the noise. It's probably one of my favourite songs to play live.

Floorboards Under The Bed

This started off as two separate songs. We decided to piece them together and it turned out to be one of the most claustrophobic songs we have. It starts of with me walking about the studio singing on my own and closes with a piano instrumental and noise. Laura also helps out again on the violin.

Interrupted

This was probably the last song we wrote for the album. It has overlapping vocal melodies and again was just an idea before it became its fully formed self in the studio. Again the lyrics are pretty dark, with lines about "burying people" and "feeding them to dogs". The main lyric is "you and I".

The Neighbours Can't Breathe

This song was again taken from The Twilight Sad Killed My Parents And Hit The Road EP. On that it was a live version, it's one of the first songs that we played live from this record and hasn't really changed too much since then. We added some keys and changed the drum pattern a little. The song title is a lyric from the song and I think it's the first time we have done that. The vocals have a different affect on this song to the rest of the album as well.

At The Burnside

This song was always going to finish the album. The lyrics revolve around a story that my dad told me and I related that back to my situation at the time. The drums are heavily distorted and I am pretty sure that Mark is hitting some fire extinguishers in the background. It opens and closes with a dark piano line. It was the perfect way to end this album in my eyes.

The Twilight Sad's second album Forget the Night Ahead is released on 5 October through Fatcat.