Fat CatScots The Twilight Sad don’t come across as the cheeriest folks you’ll meet, at least not musically. Though subsequent releases have seen the band becoming a touch more interested in atmospherics and dialing down the sonic blitzkrieg a bit, their 2007 debut Fourteen Autumns, Fifteen Winters is still a towering example of angst made audible, in deafening fashion.

And it’s that aesthetic – massive, roaring guitars and James Graham’s thick Scottish brogue – that the band brings to this live Joy Division cover, taken from last year’s tour-only album of odds and sods, Killed My Parents And Hit The Road. Song and structure-wise, it’s done pretty faithfully, but sounds as if all that anxiety and tension that was wound up in Ian Curtis’ voice is let loose in a torrent of guitar. I approve.

The Twilight Sad are opening up for Mogwai on first leg of their North American tour, finishing up this week in Chicago but not before they play Toronto on Monday night at the Phoenix. Then it’s back to Scotland where they’re working on final mixes of their next album. In this interview with Citizen Dick a couple months ago, they said that they were looking at an October 2009 release with more North American touring to follow.

MP3: The Twilight Sad – “Twenty Four Hours”
Video: Joy Division – “Twenty Four Hours” (fan video)

Richard DumasHow long have people been telling me to listen to Tindersticks? At least a couple years, probably longer – at one point a label rep was so sure the Nottingham-based band and I were kismet that they sent me copies of their last two studio albums – Can Our Love… and Waiting For The Moon – not out of any PR duty but because they simply felt I needed to hear them.

And I have listened, periodically spinning either of the two records and seeing the appeal more and more each time but never quite needing to hear them. Part of the problem, as I see it now, is that their sweeping, jazz- and r&b-accented, orchestrally-appointed world of desperate romance and melancholy isn’t the sort of place you can visit casually, you have to inhabit it. And I have more than enough downer music in my collection as is – something I realized when trying to put together a playlist for running a little while back. But I digress.

The arrival last Spring of their latest album and first in five years, The Hungry Saw, proved to be the kick in the ass I needed to revisit my unintentional but now not inconsiderable Tindersticks CD collection. I don’t know if it’s accurate to say that Saw is a more accessible entry point to their sound or if I’d already been conditioned enough by the other records, but things are now falling into place quite nicely for me with this band. It’s still unmistakeably Tindersticks – nothing with Stuart Staples’ distinctive croon could really be otherwise – but there’s a bit more sprightliness to the sound. Only a bit, the beautiful booziness and bleakness persists, but there’s enough to give the record a slightly brighter feel and to endow Staples’ delivery with a bit of coyness to temper its innate moroseness.

There’s still nothing here that might make it onto the exercise playlist, but if I need a soundtrack for moping, The Hungry Saw – and its compatriots – will be top of the stack. And considering how reverentially the band’s earliest works are spoken of, it’s possible that stack will be getting larger.

The band is embarking on a rare North American tour starting this week and will be at the Opera House in Toronto next Tuesday, March 10. And courtesy of Against The Grain, I’ve got two pairs of passes to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want Tindersticks” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest will close at midnight, March 6.

MP3:Tindersticks – “The Hungry Saw”
MySpace: Tindersticks

QRO, Music Snobbery and Metro talk to White Lies, whose debut To Lose My Life gets a North American release on March 10 and who play Lee’s Palace on March 31.

Virgin Music interviews Glasvegas. They have a sold-out show at the Mod Club on April 3.

Spin has excerpted a portion of their feature interview with Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, who are playing the Kool Haus on May 4.

Clash gets a studio update from Twilight Sad frontman James Graham about how progress is coming on album number two. The band will be hitting the road with Mogwai this Spring and be at the Phoenix on May 4.

Scottish quintet My Latest Novel, who made an impression back in 2006 with their debut Wolves will return with a follow-up on May 18 in the form of Death And Entrances. Details at The Line Of Best Fit, sample via SxSW.

MP3: My Latest Novel – “Dragonhide”

NME reports that Manic Street Preachers have completed work on their new album – at last check entitled Journal For Plague Lovers – and are aiming for a mid-May release.

Also due out in May, the new album from Maximo Park – NME has the just-announced title of the record, and that name is Quicken The Heart.

Chart rounds up some recent quotes from Oasis’ Noel Gallagher, wherein he reveals he’s almost ready to hit the studio to record the follow-up to last year’s Dig Out Your Soul and that he does all his blogging via text message.

Javier VillegasI’m sure it was just coincidence that the routing for Mogwai’s just-announced Spring North American tour are bringing them to the Phoenix in Toronto on May 4 – the same night that fellow Scots Franz Ferdinand are going to dance it up at the Kool Haus, but any way you slice it, that’s still a lot of Scottishness in town in one evening. If your Caledonian loyalties are torn, however, perhaps this little bit of information will help your decision making – Mogwai’s support for the first leg of the tour, including the T.O. show, will be The Twilight Sad.

I’ve been waiting for The Twilight Sad to return since they destroyed the El Mocambo in April 2007, and though they’ve returned to the continent a couple times since then, they’ve not paid us a visit. Their 2007 debut Fourteen Autumns, Fifteen Winters was one of my favourites of the year and while they’ve not yet followed it up – sessions for album two are underway and it’s targeted for a September release – they weren’t idle in releasing new music in the interim, either. They had two 2008 releases – the Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did EP, which recast a number of the full-lengths tracks by trading in some of the sonic fury of the originals for a more ambient, textured approach with surprisingly effective results, and the tour-only/digital-otherwise collection of this and that in Killed My Parents And Hit The Road, which cobbled together covers, live versions and unreleased tracks into a satisfying stop-gap.

Now I’m not suggesting that the young’ns will be able to top the headliners for sheer aural assault – Mogwai have been shredding eardrums for over a decade – but I have no doubt that The Twilight Sad will give them a run for their money. I’m most excited about finally getting to see them again, and will never complain about seeing Mogwai for the umpteenth time. See you at the Phoenix May 4?

Twilight Sad frontman James Graham dropped The Skinny a quick note at the end of last year, just before heading into the studio, to give an idea of what we might expect from album number two.

MP3: The Twilight Sad – “Cold Days From The Birdhouse”
MP3: The Twilight Sad – “That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy”
MySpace: The Twilight Sad

Click Music talks to Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison about their Liver! Lung! FR! live acoustic album, released in North America last Fall but only getting a UK release on March 30.

MP3: Frightened Rabbit – “Old Old Fashioned” (live)

Virgin Music interviews White Lies. Their debut To Lose My Life is out in North America on March 17 and they play Lee’s Palace on March 31.

Spin talks to Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan about what to expect from their Summer tour, which kicks off July 24 in Toronto (venue TBA). Their new album Sounds Of The Universe is out April 21.

Someone out there with a lot of juice must be a big House Of Love fan, because even though they were never much of a success their first time around and their 2005 reunion didn’t do much better, they continue to undergo one of the more thorough reissue programs around. Following reissues over the last few years of their first few album and two sets of John Peel sessions, yet another record is coming – Live At The BBC gathers together 19 tracks recorded at the Beeb between 1990 and 1992 and will be available for myself and the half-dozen other fans of the band to pick up as of March 2.

Kenneth CapelloThough Midnight Boom came out almost a year ago, The Kills aren’t done with it yet – not even close. The sultry “Black Balloon” will be released as the lead track on an EP due out March 23 in most of the world but April 14 in North America, and be backed up with a selection of acoustic tracks.

They’ve also cut a video for the song, the fifth from the album – that’s almost half the songs on the record with their own promo clips, if you’re counting. Sure, their cheap and cheerful aesthetic makes knocking them out easier than it’d be for acts beholden to higher production values, but it’s still a testament to the top-to-bottom excellence of the album. And the scary part is, almost all the remaining tracks could realistically be worked as singles as well.

And with a new release, of course there needs to be touring. The duo will be taking their ridiculously potent live show right across North America this Spring including a May 7 stop at The Phoenix. Support will be The Horrors and Magic Wands, neither of whom I know but who can’t possibly be worse than the band they brought with them last time, Telepathe. They simply cant. Music Snobbery, however, suggests The Horrors might be just as awful for other reasons and doesn’t give good odds on them even making it far enough along in the tour to visit Toronto.

And anyone worrying about rumours that he-Kill Jamie Hince’s fiancee Kate Moss was going to start recording with the band, fear not. She-Kill Alison Mosshart told The Daily Mail that was simply not going to happen.

MP3: The Kills – “U.R.A. Fever”
MP3: The Kills – “Cheap & Cheerful”
Video: The Kills – “Black Balloon”
Video: The Kills – “Tape Song”
Video: The Kills – “The Last Day Of Magic”
Video: The Kills – “Cheap & Cheerful”
Video: The Kills – “U.R.A. Fever”
MySpace: The Kills

Exclaim talks to Bishop Allen about new album Grr…, which will be out March 10 but which has two tracks available to enjoy now.

MP3: Bishop Allen – “Dimmer”
MP3: Bishop Allen – “The Ancient Commonsense Of Things”

A Place To Bury Strangers have a new video.

Video: A Place To Bury Strangers – “My Weakness”

With Christmas On Mars finally done with, CMJ asks Wayne Coyne what’s next for The Flaming Lips – back in the studio this Spring, hoping to have an album out by Summer. XFM are also running a video interview/documentary series on the band.

SFist talks to Dean Wareham about the 13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests project for which Dean & Britta are doing live scores for at screenings across the US. The film will be coming out on DVD on March 24. And no, Dean and Britta will not come to your house to play for you while you watch it.

For those of you in the UK, BBC is streaming the video of Elbow’s performance of The Seldom Seen Kid alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra from last December. For the rest of us, well, we’ll have to wait for the CD/DVD package. Though the DVD will almost certainly be region 2 and PAL. Which means those of us in North America will never see it. Hrmm…?

MusoGuide finds out what’s up with The Twilight Sad, currently at work at album number two. And did you know their limited-edition Killed My Parents and Hit the Road tour album of odds, sods and covers was now available on eMusic? Me neither, until now. Depressed Scots make me happy.

Another new video, this one from Oasis.

Video: Oasis – “Falling Down”

Pitchfork has got an MP3 from Bruce Peninsula’s A Mountain Is A Mouth, finally out in physical form. Don’t forget their in-store at Soundscapes this evening starting at 7PM, though if you want to get in and/or see, I recommend being there considerably earlier. The band alone will take up half the store.

MP3: Bruce Peninsula – “Crabapples”

Spinner talks to Gary Louris about Ready For The Flood, the album that brings he and Mark Olson to the Mod Club tonight. He also reveals that an extensive Jayhawks reissue project is underway.

Frank YangJust to give you how tightly I have my finger on the pulse of what’s hot in music… in all the CMJ coverage that my RSS reader has been barfing up at me, I’ve seen exactly one mention (at Pitchfork) of the band that got me on a plane to New York City – London’s Lucky Soul. All these other buzz bands that everyone’s talking about? Whatever.

The band had two dates scheduled as part of their North American debut, and in the interests of making the most of the opportunity, I hit up both. One was their official CMJ showcase, the other was their own show as presented by the good people at Music Snobbery, and in terms of vibe and setting they couldn’t have been more different. The former came first, and took place in a new live music room underneath Webster Hall called The Studio, and it can generously be described as a dark basement. They were the penultimate act in a showcase dubbed “Bring On The Brits” and featuring a lineup of bands whom I don’t doubt were here from the UK, but apart from Lucky Soul, none of whom I’d ever heard of. I arrived in time to catch one of said bands, a Brighton-based outfit called Passenger who played emotive acoustic-based rock and sounded not unlike The Frames if The Frames weren’t as good at what they do. Certainly nothing offensive but also nothing that had me wishing I’d arrived earlier to catch all their set. And, after all, they were in the way between me and Lucky Soul.

But they left of their own accord – no need for an incident – and right on schedule, Lucky Soul and their wonderful brand of retro soul-pop met North America. And as much as I’d like to say otherwise, it wasn’t the smoothest introduction. For starters, singer Ali Howard’s voice had gone AWOL just a few hours before the show and while she was able to perform, the clear, beautiful vocals of the record were replaced now decidedly raspier and she no longer had the range to hit some of the high notes. Her bandmates did their best to compensate with backing vox and it definitely helped, but when she dropped back, it was very noticeable. She did seem to find some more strength as the short set progressed, but a dodgy mix didn’t help matters much.

On the plus side, the band was obviously determined to not let this setback deter them and did their very best to put on an energized and enjoyable show and I’d say they succeeded, though I can’t honestly say how much of that was fact and how much was my own excitement – having played last year’s The Great Unwanted damn near to death, it was great to finally be able to hear (and see) them live, even if the circumstances weren’t ideal. I left satisfied, though also hoping that between that night and the next, Howard would discover some mystery apothecary in the Lower East Side and her voice would be magically healed.

For though that first night was the “official” show, the second night was the “real” show – a bill featuring them and them alone in the decidedly more upscale and posh surroundings of Joe’s Pub. Surprisingly, though the previous night was a free show and this one ticketed, this one was much better attended, presumably by genuine fans rather than just random CMJ punters. And while most of the observations from the previous night still held, on this occasion there was simply more. More energy, more showmanship, more songs. Howard’s voice, sadly, was still hurting but again it improved as things went on and spared the PA dropouts from the Webster Hall show she was able to make the rasp work in her favour, mostly, giving the songs more of an edge from the sweetness of the recorded versions. The band were just as tight but the positive vibe of the room seemed to give them more pop. They sounded great and they looked great, the boys in suits and Howard in a sleek strapless dress. Between the two nights, I had a marvelous time and was absolutely thrilled to have been able to see them live – and considering how swarmed by fans the band were after the gig, seeking merch and autographs, I was not nearly the only one.

Both nights had similar setlists, though the Joe’s Pub one was obviously longer. In addition to covering most all of The Great Unwanted, they played more new material than I’d expected – it sounded less overtly throwback-y with a touch more country-soul, but still wonderfully hooky and quite strong. The debut was not a fluke. As I understand it, a second album is still a ways off but this bodes well for whenever it comes. Which raises that ever-present rhetorical question – why aren’t these guys, if not huge, then at least more talked about? Most everyone whom I’ve made to listen to it has fallen in love with them and it’s not as though it’s difficult music or would be at all tough to market. But these… these are questions that there’s no rational answer for and dost make one’s head hurt. So I’ll simply say that their two shows made the trip totally worthwhile and this had better not be the last time I get to see them perform.

Music Snobbery has a review of his own show. He thinks it went alright. And the band has blogged their eventful sojourn to the new world – terrific reading.

Photos: Lucky Soul, Passenger @ The Studio at Webster Hall, New York City – October 23, 2008
Photos: Lucky Soul @ Joe’s Pub, New York City – October 24, 2008
MP3: Lucky Soul – “The Great Unwanted”
Video: Lucky Soul – “Lips Are Unhappy”
Video: Lucky Soul – “My Brittle Heart”
Video: Lucky Soul – “Add Your Light To Mine, Baby”
MySpace: Lucky Soul
MySpace: Passenger

Pitchfork talks to Gwenno about the differences between The Pipettes mark one and two (more ’80s, less ’60s) and the precognitive powers of her hair colour.

Frightened Rabbit are offering up an MP3 from their new live album Liver! Lung! FR!.

MP3: Frightened Rabbit – “Old Old Fashioned” (live)

Making an appearance on said record is Twilight Sad frontman James Graham, and to mark the start of that band’s Fall European tour with Mogwai, they’re releasing a limited-edition album collecting live tracks, unreleased goodies and covers… of course, the only place to get it right now is their Fall European tour with Mogwai, but surely there’ll be other avenues and when I know, I’ll let you know. More details on the release at Pitchfork.

This Is Fake DIY, Wales Online and MusicOhm talk to Los Campesinos! about their new record We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, out November 11.

Kele Okereke of Bloc Party doles out sex advice at The Guardian, NME reports that the band is considering ditching the physical CD single. Intimacy is out today and streaming at Spinner.

Stream: Bloc Party / Intimacy

Minnesota Public Radio serves up a session with The Rumble Strips, in town at the El Mocambo tomorrow night.