Tom Brosseau

Brrrrraaaammmpppllleeeerrrggghhh… POPpppleeeerghaWWWaaaahhh

Is, roughly, the noise that precedes the arrival of The Twilight Sad on stage at Cargo; the immediate click-whirr thought process: too much beer, not enough food, early night methinks. Mercifully the Scots are on first; sadly, Tom Brosseau and Mice Parade will be skipped. Victims of a night soured too soon for remedying.

Belly rocking to rhythms entirely of its own making, the gurgle-pop fizz-burst of carbonated booze washed down with more sparkling brown stuff – tonight’s tipple of choice, surprisingly Amstel; must be the return of the Champions League – settles once the band do plug in and bust forth, amplifiers and PA quite almost literally buckling under the strain of 10,000 jigawatts… there or thereabouts. A band of silent faces but expressions most arresting, the quartet’s relative statuesqueness detracts diddly-squat from music that flexes and bulges with the power of a background expanding across albums and decades. That this band has only recently issued their debut album is a fact that leaves impressed onlookers flabbergast.

But, this is not The Sad at their finest; the epic immersion their Fourteen Autumns And Fifteen Winters offers is crackled into cough-fits and static; a snapped bass string – or does he always have three? – and no soundcheck equals a groping-in-the-dark set, one where the band physically, visually, claw their way from A to Z with an acute awareness of their exposed position. High and wide they are spread, and it’s easy to crack a smile when James Graham’s microphone cuts loose of its cable for the nth time; so easy that inevitability takes hold and what could be perceived as a heckle ventures its way uneasily from jaws ‘til now wired ajar.

“What?”

I forget what I’ve said: nothing rude, just a comment on the state of the faulty equipment; fuck it, or something; shout your way through; you can, you know, with pipes like those; seriously, you could awaken the dead given a clear day and a lofty hillock. Recoiling, crowd envelopes as the music did seconds previously; a less-than-impressed bassist taps away, keen to make his escape; opposite, pedals are depressed with care, the ripples of heated chords heavenly and brutal. Even in defeat The Twilight Sad are graceful, great of volume but elegant and possessed of a natural poise that masks any insecurities such capital scrutiny sets ablaze within their own churning and chomping guts.

And a quick tick-sheet: comparable to other loud Scottish bands but better; lyrically ambitious and delivery akin to a similarly fraught Ian Curtis, or Roddy Woomble after the writhing years; upright and matter-of-fact; fearful and twitchy; guitar rock executed in quicksand; accessible yet distant, just beyond the fingertips.

Exit, stage left. Or is that right from such a perspective? An attempt at banter flops, flailing in the wake of a departure prompted not by displeasure with what’s seen/scene, but by actions unbecoming of a would-be professional. Hasty and quick – a tooth pulled without anaesthetic, yet the root deadened to flowing crimson long ago. Echoes of what can be – the future for The Twilight Sad is positively deafening.

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeee… surpasses the guttural discombobulation and takes centre stage the length of the 68.