FOURTEEN AUTUMNS AND FIFTEEN WINTERS

An excellent debut from a band that deserves more attention. Obviously Scottish in vocals and sensibilities - revelling in their depressing lyrics to create a sublime audio experience. For fans of Lenard Cohen, The Cure, The National and Deus. Highly recommended.

thanks

Only just heard of twilight sad this year after seeing them at a festival. Got all of their albums after and this one in particular is stunning. Can't wait for their new one

Outstanding album - just buy it

Excelent.

From honing their skills in Glasgow's less than glamourous 13th Note venue to universal blogosphere acclaim via some well-recieved SXSW performances, in just over three years. The Twilight Sad's rise has been remarkable. Such is the buzz about this band that even if you lived in a cave on Mars, you will have heard of this Scottish quartet. With the sad demise of AC Acoustics and Arab Strap and Aerogramme's imminent departure, 'Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Summers' is the shot in the arm Scotland's music scene needs right now.Employing the wall of sound tactics of Sigur Ros, but combining it with the energy of early Idlewild, The Twilight Sad have come across a winning formula that has seen them explode in the US. Now the rest of the world seems to be catching on too. Of course, everyone loves a Scottish accent and frontman James Graham has one of the thickest dialects yet. His vocals recall both Idlewild's Roddy Woomble and even Morrissey at times, albeit a Scottish version. However, dig a little deeper and this album provides some great moments that tend to veer into monolithic slabs of distortion heavy indie rock.The Twilight Sad is said to be an intense live experience, but the over-driven guitar work on 'Walking For Two Hours', hints at how powerful this band's sound can be. Although most of the tracks follow the same tactic, combining white noise with soaring choruses has propelled The Twilight Sad intothe limelight. This is not the time to start deconstructing their sound. 'Talking With Fireworks/Here, It Never Soared', starts with monumental waves of discordant guitar and tumbling percussion and weaves between this segment and a more calming verse. It's like Mogwai and Arab Strap sharing a stage and fighting with one another to be heard. But then, the likes of 'Mapped By What Surrounded Them' and 'And She Would Darken The Memory' offer up insanely catchy choruses that will have you singing at the top of your voice.Using a fairly simple quiet/loud aesthetic, The Twilight Sad have created one hell of a melodic racket in 'Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters". Building on the promise of 2006's Max Richter produced self-titled Ep, I challenge anyone not to enjoy this album. Let yourself be swayed and sing along with your best Scottish accent. Epic and anthemic, sizzling guitars and soaring melodies, this is superb stuff from these young Scots.

The debut full length by the Twilight Sad is both trenchantly uncommercial and the sound of a cult band waiting to happen.Blending a lo-fi aesthetic with walls of shoegaze guitar and more traditional instrumentation like piano and organ, the songs here eschew conventional verse/chorus/verse structure, instead achieveing their potency through building layers of noise on repeated motifs and subtly shifting lines of melody. Frontman James Graham's defiantly Scottish vocals won't be to everyone's taste either, (although bands like Idlewild and Arab Strap have proven this need not be a barrier to an audience) but they certainly help lend the songs here some of their menace.Now, I have no wish to stereotype the Scots as an aggressive people, but the image of Graham swaggering toward you, alternately murmuring and barking lines like 'And does your fear not grow when when you see that you're all mine...with a knife in your chest,' is impossibly intimidating. When the album closes with the woozy, narcotic hum of Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, the effect is of the carthasis following an act of violence.

Not for a long time have I been as genuinely excited by a Scottish band as I have listening to 'The Twilight Sad'. There is no mistaking the Scottish accent in the vocals but this is a good thing and adds a raw and biting element to the proceedings. The voice reminds me a little of a young Midge Ure but this is as far from Ultravox as you'll get. The lyrics hit you hard e.g. "the children are on fire, in the bedroom" and while the guitar work is in your face, the melodies shine through. On my way back to Scotland from America, looking across the sky, the 1st track really hit me hard when it came on and I felt a patriotic rush of adrenaline. As a debut album, I don't think many bands could better this and the only sadness I have is that this band's talent may never be appreciated.