Siderated Mariners Spending Cold Days in the Birdhouse,

I did The Twilight Sad a disservice that they did not deserve by not reviewing Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters during its week of release.

It’s really big; most tracks have rumbling and thundering keyboards in them. The music was composed first and then the words were fitted to the pieces later. I wonder if without the vocals, this would sound like Explosions in the Sky, for Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters is created from guitars, bass, drums, effects pedals and keyboards amongst other stuff, and is similarly dramatic in the way that it swirls dizzily in a maze of noise.

The lyrics are very abstract. The songs of The Twilight Sad have very bleak titles. Bits and pieces protrude from the songs and they seem to be memories of difficult social situations projected back rather emotively in what is a rather striking Scottish accent. “Why do they come when you’re always raining?” is from Walking for Two Hours, it means little, who is this person who is raining? Do I rain? “Head up, dear, the rabbit might die” from And She Would Darken the Memory, the song is about a partner who is a pain in the neck, but why does the rabbit have to die? I’m now paranoid because I’m told in That Summer at Home, I Had Become the Invisible Boy that “they’re sitting around the table and talking behind your back”. Actually, it’s all good and very real. I’d have this album no other way, I’ve been waiting for it for months.

It’s a shame that someone in the Amazon review has described this album as “Groundskeeper Willie-esque”. What a numpty!