There Will Be Fireworks‘ self-titled debut was a gem of an album. With a style that sounded like an amalgamation of Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad. TWBF mixed confessional, compassionate lyrics with a post-rock noise to create a powerful, cathartic album that stood up well next to its comparisons.
The follow-up The Dark, Dark Bright, four years in the making, is a progression of this sound, an evolution rather than revolution. You get the impression that this is a band which has have found its niche and is now mining it for gold, rather than switching flippantly between genres to try to find something by pure chance and score some success. In a world where many acts seem unable to resist adding synths or tropical beats or banjos, this is an admirable display of confidence in a personal style.
What makes The Dark, Dark Bright such an affecting listen is the interplay between the gentle lulls and the crashing crescendos. I can’t think of too many bands who achieve this duality quite as well as TWBF. Sudden bursts of noise arise out of nowhere, lead Nicky McManus shouting over a collision of instruments, swirling guitars, thumping drums and God knows what else.
McManus’ shouting doesn’t feel like some stylistic plan, but rather a natural reaction to the narratives he’s relating and the emotions he’s feeling. In this interview with The Pop Cop, McManus gives some insight into this sense, stating that he wrote the lyrics while living in an apartment overlooking Glasgow harbour. He says that the building felt ‘cut off from the world’ and that most of his friends (including the other band members) had left the city. With the music churning like an angry sea, his shouted lyrics are that of a man wanting to be heard amongst chaos, the desperate voicing of an important message into a world already saturated with the cacophony of turmoil and grief and life itself. When this subsides, when the instrumentation quietens and the lyrics become reflective, almost nostalgic, it’s as if he is satisfied he is finally being heard.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/115368333″]
The Dark, Dark Bright is to be released by Glasgow’s Comets & Cartwheels on the 25th November. Pre-order it here.