Album Review: The Twilight Sad - No One Can Ever Know

The Twilight Sad - No One Can Ever Know (2012, FatCat)

Spotify

Mog

On each consecutive album, The Twilight Sad have tried a different variation of their sound. No One Can Ever Know utilizes less guitar and feedback for a cleaner, more rhythm focused sound. Long gone is the is the bleak, almost post-rock sound of their debut. This change in sound has sapped them of a lot of their strengths as a band. No One Can Ever Know is an album that wants to be emotionally powerful, but lacks both emotion and power.

The album begins with the dour “Alphabet”. The song never reaches any kind of real climax to speak of. This is a problem throughout No One Can Ever Know. A lot of the songs feel like they are building to something, but that shift never comes. The lack of real instrumental strength leads the listener to focus on the lyrical content of each individual song that much more. The band’s lyrics have always been somewhat abstract, and I’ve always enjoyed them for that. With the exception of a few songs, they are well done here. That being said, they were never really the strong point of the band and they lack the ability to carry an album like they are asked to do here.

“Dead City” follows in the same footsteps as “Alphabet”. It feels like it just needs to hit one more level to become a good if not great song, but never manages it. “Sick” is a very good example of the strange focus musically on this album. While there is guitar, the focus tends to be towards the rhythm section. This focus causes the song to just feel plodding. Sadly, this is a theme throughout most of the album.

The only two songs that I actually felt showed enough life to warrant mentioning from the second half of the album are “Don’t Look At Me” and “Another Bed”. They have the life of previous works by the band, and feel like complete songs. That is a good way to describe this album: unfinished. It almost sounds like there should be another layer to most tracks on the album that just isn’t present. It’s sad, because there is a lot of good groundwork here, but not enough to make this album worth recommending. 

5.7/10

Songs I Starred On Spotify:

• Don’t Look At Me
• Another Bed