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Oct 08, 2019 By Christopher Roberts The Twilight Sad

Scotland’s The Twilight Sad released a new album, It Won/t Be Like This All the Time, back in January via Mogwai’s label, Rock Action. Now they have shared two new songs, “Rats” and “Public Housing.” The songs were written during the sessions for It Won/t Be Like This All the Time but didn’t make the album. Check them out below.

The band’s guitarist Andy MacFarlane had this to say about the songs in a press release: “‘Rats’ was in the first of demos, along with ‘Shooting Dennis Hopper Shooting’ and ‘The Arbor’, that paved the way for developing the sound and direction we wanted to take the album in. We were trying to capture more of the chaotic live sound of the band and condense it into three minutes.”

Frontman James Graham had this to say: “As the recording process progressed, we could tell that these two songs were a little different from the rest of the album. To me they felt heavier and lyrically they came from a place of complete despair. They started to stand out on their own separately from the album. They were songs we really liked and they weren’t just off-cuts from the album either - we wanted them to stand on their own. So we felt like a proper release was deserved. The two songs feel linked to me, one has no hope and the other is reaching out, looking for some good in people/myself/the world.”

Regarding the songs’ lyrics, Graham had this to say: “‘Rats’ doesn’t have much hope; it’s from a dark place. It was written on a dark day for me personally. I think that’s quite obvious with lines like ‘all you love is dead’. It’s also a reaction about a mindset I think is very dangerous in our society: the attitude of ‘just get on with it’ and that talking about your feelings or insecurities can be seen as a weakness. I think it’s a major problem taking that approach towards young men especially - the term ‘man up’ being a horrible example. The line ‘don’t take it to heart’ represents this. Knowing that attitude exists all around you when you are struggling makes you feel very alone. These songs are bleak but writing them helped get me out of a bad place in my head.”

Read our interview with The Twilight Sad on It Won/t Be Like This All the Time.

Previously the band shared three songs from It Won/t Be Like This All the Time, starting with “I/m Not Here [missing face],” a new song they shared back in July 2018 (it was one of our Songs of the Week), and album closer “Videograms,” which they shared in September 2018 when the album was announced (it was also one of our Songs of the Week). Then they shared “VTr” (it was also one of our Songs of the Week), as well as a video for “VTr.” The album was our joint Album of the Week.

Work on It Won/t Be Like This All the Time began during the band’s recent tours with The Cure. Guitarist Andy MacFarlane worked on demos in his London home. Six months later the band got together in November 2017 in a remote rehearsal space on Loch Fyne and then recorded the album in January of this year at Devon’s Middle Farm Studios with live engineer Andy Bush. This the first album that sees long-time touring members Brendan Smith (The Blue Nile, The Unwinding Hours) and Johnny Docherty (Take a Worm For a Walk Week, RUNGS) officially join the band.

In a previous press release frontman James Graham had this to say about recording the album: “I’ve always seen Brendan and Johnny as part of the band and it’s time to say that aloud. From the actual coming together of the demos to recording the final versions of these songs has probably been one of my favorite experiences of being in the band. All four of us were throwing ideas in, whereas before Andy had mapped it all out. Once he got past the point of making the demos his point of view was ‘we need to make these even better. These need to take a step up from where they are.’ He opened the floor to everybody.

“The results speak for themselves: an exhilarating listen, by turns cinematic and claustrophobic in its scope, the band dug deep to produce It Won/t Be Like This All the Time, and it’s perhaps their most raw and dynamic record to date.

“It’s a dark record but I think there are some uplifting moments to be had too. There are so many extremes here - there are moments that are harsh, then others that are quite melodic and others that are stripped right down. This album definitely comes with the extremes of every side of the band, I think. There’s a certain direct openness and candor now but at the same time I want to keep some mystery. We don’t like to throw things in people’s faces and spell it out for them.”

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