No One Can Ever Know
As made clear already by widely-spread preview track “Kill It In The Morning” and first single “Sick,” The Twilight Sad’s third full-length, No One Can Ever Know, marks a sonic shift for the band. Freshly inspired by a listening diet of Cabaret Voltaire, Can, Liars, Magazine, Autechre, and Public Image Limited, the band turn to a dark, synth-heavy sound for No One Can Ever Know; the resulting LP shares thematic and sonic space with the most innovative offerings from Depeche Mode, The Cure, or even Nine Inch Nails. “We wanted to be a lot more spontaneous, get outside our comfort zone - not to fall back into repeating what we've done previously,” explains guitarist Andy MacFarlane. “So we moved to London for a month to record at The Pool and got Andrew Weatherall involved to bounce ideas off and to generally reassure us of the direction we were already progressing in – toward a sparser sound, with a colder, slightly militant feel.” Under the guidance of Weatherall the band experimented with vintage analog synths - borrowed from producer Ben Hillier – to work on the core sounds they wanted, finding further inspiration in the distinctive production style of innovators like Factory Records’ Martin Hannett and Cluster‘s Conny Plank.
The Scottish trio's frigid, militant, rhythmic Andrew Weatherall-produced third LP is more about obsession than release.
The new direction that third album No One Can Ever Know maps out for The Twilight Sad shouldn’t be too much of a curveball for avid fans. The trimmed-down Kilsyth trio have always looked to push the envelope, while the long lineage of acts marrying cold, glacial synths to dark and ominous subject matter is well documented. What is perhaps more marked is how lean and concise this stands in their canon. Multi-instrumentalist Andy MacFarlane’s gritty bass riffs paired with Mark Devine’s metronomic drumming fuel the core tempo, propelling standout cuts like Nil and Kill It In The Morning towards towering climaxes you can feel in your bones from the first listen.
The Twilight Sad 'No One Can Ever Know' album review on Northern Transmissions.
The Twilight Sad - No One Can Ever Know review: Channeling post-punk melancholy lends an even darker tint to The Twilight Sad's drawn-out sound.