The Twilight Sad

★★★ It Won/t Be Like This All The Time ROCK ACTION. CD/DL/LP

Cure-endorsed Glaswegians keep Pictish grit in their mainstreaming.

After traversing the globe in 2016 as The Cure’s handpicked support band, TTS submitted this fifth album’s demoes to Robert Smith for a mark out of 10, and King Goth has since mentored the group. Now officially expanded into a quartet after debuting in 2007 as a core duo of James Graham (vocals/lyrics) and Andy MacFarlane (guitars/ music), they talk of It Won/t Be Like This… as a watershed moment. Certainly, their initial torrid confluence of My Bloody Valentine and Joy Division here shapeshifts more towards “synth-assisted stadium nu-gaze”, with odd Kraut-y hints of early Simple Minds, and frequent echoes of their new-found patron: funereal The Arbor is pure Disintegration, while shimmering Keep It All To Yourself has Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me! ’s hi-tech dazzle. The epic Shooting Dennis Hopper Shooting, meanwhile, is tantamount to Coldplay, its appeal only limited by Graham’s emotive bawl, a somewhat niche attraction.