The Twilight Sad – Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters Review

4 September 2008, Carmen @ 8:00 pm The Twilight Sad Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters Review

It’s hard not to romanticize Scotland. It’s an amazingly beautiful place – rolling green hills, fallen-down castles; a place where pints of stout slide down the back of your throat like water. Romanticizing Scottish bands is just as easy: The Reindeer Section, Belle & Sebastian, Camera Obscura. There’s something incredibly intriguing about an accent as thick as your winter socks.

So obviously I had little chance of disliking James Graham’s vocals on The Twilight Sad’s Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters. His flat delivery is like a fog rolling in over the moors – so mystifying you want to know more about where it’s coming from.

The album begins with repeated notes in the piano’s highest register and an understated acoustic guitar on “Cold Days from the Birdhouse”. As a first impression, this song was a good choice. It sets a tone – I feel like I should grab my blankets and cozy up to a fire – with my “woolen plans”. There’s fire in this song and it seems most apparent in Graham’s vocals when he sings, “and so you make it your own but this is where your arm can’t go”.

It sticks. Precisely what you should expect from a well-crafted pop song. Except The Twilight Sad isn’t making pop music.

Or are they? The drums in “That Summer, At Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy” are boldly reminiscent of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps”. In fact, I couldn’t concentrate on the lyrics and melody, as I spent the entire five minutes humming Karen O’s version. As well, I was distracted by the overly long title. There are also elements of Arcade Fire here, although The Twilight Sad lacks the layered, colourful backing vocals and counter-melodies.

As the album continues, I feel as though I’m taking a jaunt through my teenage years. The Twilight Sad has little trouble showing its appreciation for the late 90s, and while Graham’s delivery greatly impressed me at first, it becomes increasingly apparent that his range is minimal. As well, the production and the drumming never gets quite as inventive as I’d like. There are times when the vocals get lost in the mix with effects that remind me of songs I recorded in my bathroom where I mistook the reverb for an intimacy and immediacy. It didn’t work for me and it’s not working here.

“Talking with Fireworks/Here, It Never Snowed”, with its crashing, confident beginning and militant drumming, gave me hope. When Graham croons, “with a knife in your chest”, followed by a convincing crescendo, it feels like they are opening up; they are finally going to tell us a story.

But I am, once again, disappointed. “And She Would Darken the Memory”, beautifully titled, turns out to be boring, and drones on at the same tempo as many of the band’s previous compositions. I was hoping for something more formidable, more layered. In “I’m Taking the Train Home”, I find the drums distracting rather than complimentary, especially in the first few bars. I am continually wondering why Graham doesn’t go for it. He sings lovely passages like “your green eyes turn to blue” but I wish he’d let go more often like he does in portions of this song. It would have been nice to have this piece sound more like a train ride – company for that commute home. Where is the personality in MacFarlane and Orzel’s playing? Most of the time they are just counting bars, marking time, falling asleep at the wheel. Thankfully, they make it up in the ending, which has a nice build to it.

At least the title track is redeeming. It has a conceptual and poetic feel. It’s the kind of instrumental that reminds you of a snowstorm – peering out a fogged-up window wearing an itchy woolen sweater – a sweater that’s a few sizes too big. And it feels like The Twilight Sad has some growing to do to make that sweater fit.