The Twilight Sad - Live
[Glasgow King Tut's Wah Wah Hut]

Fair play to The Twilight Sad, inviting Her Name Is Calla to play with them on tour. If they were nervous about following such an immense performance from their support act, then it didn’t show. A lesser band may well have crumbled, but the only thing that was crumbling when The Sad kicked-off their set was King Tut’s foundations. Greeting a packed out venue with an absolutely monolithic assault of drums, bass and guitar, this young Glaswegian quartet were intent on making an impression of their own.

Having spent the last few years carving out a comfortable little niche for themselves, Stateside especially, there was a more professional approach to this show than their last few hometown outings. Those insanely catchy choruses drowned in chaotic distortion are irresistible at times, as guitarist Andy McFarlene manages to make his instrument sound like an army of the things. In vocalist, James Graham, they have an ace in their pack. He plays the role of the reluctant frontman very well, the anti-hero if you will. You get the impression that if he wasn’t fronting the band, he’d be down the front supporting them to the hilt. Performing side on to the audience it is a persona that suits him well as he delivers his sentimental and often nostalgic lyrics, with his thick Scottish brogue. No wonder the Americans love them, it is an impeccable formula. Like early Idlewild in a back alley fist fight with Mogwai the likes of “Walking for Two Hours” and “That Summer I Had Become an Invisible Boy” spread their melodies like an epidemic and you cannot help but be swayed by it all.

Although it is, at times, a breathtaking formula, a formula it remains. Is it enough, as the band approach the ‘difficult’ second album stage, to continue down this path? The avid fan would most certainly want them to, but the question is, does their sound leave room for progression?