Gig review: The Twilight Sad, Glasgow

It WAS entirely fitting that The Twilight Sad’s latest homecoming gig should take place on the darkest, stormiest night of December so far. This, after all, is a band that wallows in highly dramatic, weighty despair.

The Twilight Sad make their fans happy with their sonic assault of weighty, dramatic despair. Picture: Robert Perry

The Twilight Sad - ABC, Glasgow

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Having only previously heard them on record, where their sad-eyed post-punk is relatively subdued, I wasn’t quite prepared for the total contrast of their live show. I knew they were notorious for being loud, but this was a total assault on the senses. Experiencing them live is like being enveloped by an enormous black cloud of industrial dust. It’s a deafening sonic rumble of uncompromising proportions.

Front-man James Graham can barely be heard above the din. His distinctive deadpan croon becomes a detectable yet indistinct component of an ear-splitting wall of sound. It shouldn’t work. It should sound awful. But in reality it’s viscerally exciting.

The crucial point is that, despite the blanket noise, the songs aren’t indistinguishable from one another. Their grasp of dynamics ensures that the grinding power of the Krautrock-influenced Dead City doesn’t sound the same as, say, the soaring The Wrong Car. At times they sound like a fantastically warped stadium rock band peddling disaffected anthems for the hard of hearing.

Ecstatically received by a packed house, it’s clear that The Twilight Sad have touched a raw nerve with their fans. Despite their gloomy aesthetic, a yearning sense of communal warmth ensured that this triumphant show was anything but depressing. On the contrary, it was perversely life-affirming.

Seen on 19.12.14