The Twilight Sad are a Scottish post-punk/indie rock band from Kilsyth, formed in 2003. The band is currently a duo consisting of founding members James Graham (vocals and lyrics) and Andy MacFarlane (guitar, instrumentation and music). They have released six studio albums, as well as several EPs, live recordings and singles.
Founded by Graham, MacFarlane, Craig Orzel (bass) and Mark Devine (drums), the band's 2007 debut album, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, drew widespread acclaim from critics, who noted Graham's thick Scottish accent and MacFarlane's dense sonic walls of shoegazing guitar and wheezing accordion. The Twilight Sad's notoriously loud live performances have been described as "completely ear-splitting", and the band toured for the album across Europe and the United States throughout 2007 and 2008. Sessions inspired by stripped-down and reworked live performances yielded the 2008 mini-album, Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did.
The band's second album, Forget the Night Ahead, marked a shift in their direction; lyrically more personal and musically darker and more streamlined, it was released in 2009 to acclaim. Recording sessions for the album also produced the mid-2010 release The Wrong Car, which followed the departure of founding bassist Craig Orzel in February 2010. The Twilight Sad's third album, No One Can Ever Know, was released in February 2012 and marked another stylistic shift, with the band citing industrial music and krautrock influences for a darker, sparser sound. The band's fourth album, entitled Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave, was released in late October 2014 to universally positive reviews, and was the band's last album with founding member Mark Devine, who left amicably in January 2018. The Twilight Sad's fifth studio album, It Won/t Be Like This All the Time, was released in January 2019 to further critical acclaim. In 2025, the band became a duo, consisting of core songwriters Graham and MacFarlane; they subsequently announced their sixth studio album, It's the Long Goodbye, which was released to unanimous praise on 27 March 2026.
The band has described their sound as "folk with layers of noise", and music critics have described the band as "perennially unhappy" and "a band that inject some real emotion and dynamic excitement into a comparatively standard template."
History 2003–2006: Beginnings The foundation for the group started in Kilsyth and the neighbouring village of Banton, when vocalist James Graham met guitarist Andy MacFarlane in high school and went on to form a cover band with some friends, which included drummer Mark Devine. After leaving school, they decided to take it more seriously. In late 2003, MacFarlane met bassist Craig Orzel in a bus stop and invited him to join the newly formed band. They took their name from a line in the poem "But I Was Looking at the Permanent Stars" by British poet Wilfred Owen, which reads "Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad."; James Graham confirmed this in a Twitter update: [sic] "our names from a Wilfred Owen poem but unfortunately people think we've got something to do with a teen vampire series :("
They performed two highly experimental shows at The 13th Note Café in Glasgow that revolved around 30-minute noise jams with guitars, bass, drums, theremin, tape loops from films and old folk and country songs, effects pedals, toy keyboards, thumb pianos, and computer games. Afterwards, they decided to take a more traditional approach, which led them to write their first song, "That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy".
In September 2006, they produced a 4-song demo with a 24-track desk recorded at Paulshalls Studios in Cumbernauld recorded by David McKellar, trying to get the best representation as possible, and sent it over to Brighton-based Fat Cat Records. Alex Knight, co-founder of the label, went to Glasgow to watch the band perform their third gig and signed them on the spot. The demo recordings were later issued commercially on a split cassette tape release with Frightened Rabbit for Record Store Day in 2011.
The band credit Planet Sound for giving them their first review, when a demo of their song "That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy" received a 9/10 rating from the magazine in 2005. James Graham remarked, "That was the first review we ever had... we were thrilled. It gave us a lot of confidence we were on the right path." The band's first commercial release, their self-titled EP, was mixed by label mate Max Richter and released in November 2006 in the United States only. They then proceeded to play the fourth gig of their career at New York's CMJ Music Marathon. During this time the band also toured with Micah P. Hinson and participated in 2007's South by Southwest music festival before their debut album was released.
2007–2008: Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters
Their debut studio album, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, was released in April 2007, featuring production from guitarist Andy MacFarlane and mixed by Peter Katis. The album was recorded over a short period of just three days, and the songs featured were the first ones the band had ever written. It received good critical reception from independent media; the album was lauded as 2007's "Album of the Year" in Planet Sound and The Skinny in Scotland.
In July 2007, the band contributed a cover of Radiohead's "Climbing Up the Walls" to the download-only compilation Stereogum Presents... OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer, a track-for-track collection of covers commemorating the 10th anniversary of Radiohead's OK Computer album.
Inspired by a stripped down performance at London's Union Chapel, the band reworked some of the songs on Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters for a new mini-album entitled Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did, released in June 2008.
During this time, the band supported acts such as Mogwai, The Smashing Pumpkins, Snow Patrol, David Pajo, Battles, Beirut, Frightened Rabbit, and Idlewild. During their winter tour with Mogwai, the band released Killed My Parents and Hit the Road, a compilation of live recordings, covers, acoustic demos, and unreleased material.
2009–2010: Forget the Night Ahead and Orzel's departure
The band released their second studio album, Forget the Night Ahead, in September 2009. Musically, they described the album as "noisier and bigger", where they experimented with a lot of instruments and different sounds, including fire extinguishers. The album was released to further critical acclaim, and was supported by multiple tours of Europe and the United States.
On 8 February 2010, it was announced that founding bassist Craig Orzel had left the band. With a statement on the band's official blog, Orzel cited personal reasons for the departure and later stated that "there were some changes I wanted to make to my life that I felt being in The Sad was allowing me to put off." Orzel continues to record music under his solo moniker, Orzelda. Following Orzel's departure, the band added Johnny Docherty, of Take a Worm for a Walk Week, to the band's live line-up.
The band's first release since Orzel's departure, an EP entitled The Wrong Car, was released in late September 2010. The EP features two previously unreleased songs which were written and recorded during the sessions for Forget the Night Ahead, as well as two remixes by Simon Ward of Errors and Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai.
2010–2012: No One Can Ever Know
Whilst on tour with Errors in October 2010, vocalist James Graham stated that "the next [album] is not going to be anything like the first two. [...] The wall of sound is kinda gone. Andy [MacFarlane]'s demos involve a lot of keyboards, and it's a lot more considered." Additional musician Martin "Dok" Doherty also stated that "the band who make the same record over and over don't have a very long career." The band returned to the studio in January 2011. In April 2011, the band released a free acoustic EP on their official blog. The release featured stripped-back renditions of tracks from both Forget the Night Ahead and The Wrong Car.
The Twilight Sad's third album, No One Can Ever Know, was released on 6 February 2012. Andy MacFarlane describes the album's sound as "sparser... with a colder, slightly militant feel," and the band received some production assistance from producer Andrew Weatherall, who helped in their experimenting with analog synthesizers. The band released a new song, the album's closing track "Kill It in the Morning", for free on their new website and SoundCloud page on 21 September 2011. The first proper single from the album, "Sick", was made available as a 7" vinyl single and digital download on 14 November 2011. Second single "Another Bed" followed the album's release on 20 February 2012.
In August 2012, the band announced that touring keyboardist Martin "Dok" Doherty would no longer be performing with the band, stating "[An] end of an era as our next two gigs will be Dok's last with the band. One of our best friends and one of the most talented people we know! [...] Been a pleasure and a privilege to share the stage, be on the road [and] have many a drunken night in foreign lands over the past five years with you, Dok." Later that month, Doherty's replacement was revealed to be Brendan Smith, previously of the bands Julia Thirteen and The Unwinding Hours. Regarding the band's line-up changes over the past six years, James Graham noted, "The good thing about the line up changes is that we all remain friends with each other and when someone has left it's been for a good reason and the right choice for them. We've lucked out with Johnny [Docherty] and Brendan who are maniacs in the best possible way, but they are also brilliant musicians as were Dok and Craig [Orzel] and they all put the likes of me to shame." Doherty left the band to further pursue his electropop project Chvrches with former Aereogramme guitarist Iain Cook and singer Lauren Mayberry.
Along with nationwide tours of the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as European festivals during the summer and a headlining gig at Barrowland Ballroom in December, the band released a collection of remixes entitled No One Can Ever Know: The Remixes in November 2012. In December 2013, The Twilight Sad and The Skinny released a free digital download single and video of the band performing "The Wrong Car" with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, recorded live at Paisley Abbey in October 2013.
2013–2015: Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave
The Twilight Sad performed their debut album Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters in its entirety for the first time in December 2013, with further UK dates performing the full album in April and May 2014. The tour dates coincided with the release of a deluxe edition reissue of the debut album, with bonus tracks including demos and rarities, released on Record Store Day 2014.