With every composition given a sense of its own individuality through lengthy, film title-like track names such as “That Summer, At Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy”, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters feels like an orchestral arrangement of many shifting movements or the aural equivalent of a novella, each chapter allowed significance and precedence through its unique approach. While this depiction of the album appears to suggest that the record is a series of loosely linked, cinematic soundscapes, and in some respects this is true, the overall experience of the recording is one of a complete work, a series of resounding tapestries amalgamated by their emotional explorations despite their diacritical nature. This unity is made possible through James Graham’s distinctly Glaswegian accent coloring the tone of his vocal delivery, the grandiose layering of the guitars and bass, and drum lines that slip easily from a near marching band steadiness into more fluid and thundering deliveries; each element, while facilitated differently in the individual songs, is a telling brush stroke of a singular group of artists.

Evoking a strange collection of peers, the Twilight Sad are a difficult group to classify, even in today’s world of curious genre labeling. Maybe our contemporaries at Pitchfork would risk labeling them an ‘epic indie’, a ‘cinematic shoegaze’, or, hell, a ‘post-shoegaze’ band (you can never really prepare yourself for what’s buried in the peculiar literary ejaculations of a Pitchfork review). At times the band seems to tread similar tangents to that of the Arcade Fire only to launch themselves to the dynamic heights of fellow countrymen Mogwai, and a number of other accomplished groups could be used as ineffective measurements of their musical range. The Twilight Sad are one of the most unique bands to step out of Britain in the past few years, their sound thick with distorted and delayed guitars, full, deep bass, and substantial drums, all propelling Graham’s dark, accented vocals as they explore a number of poetically articulated, though often rather vague, themes. While adolescence seems to be the focus of the album’s title and is referenced again in “That Summer, At Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy” - “I’m 14, and don’t you know I’m looking the wrong way; and is the past outside or in this lovely home?” - it is difficult to always be confident in one’s translation of Graham’s cryptic, often bitter lyrics. This has yet to stop me singing along with even the most perplexing lines, my favorite being - “Head up, dear, you’re shallow and blind. And head up, dear, the rabbit may die…”.

I will not be surprised to find Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters slipping into the upper ranks of my ‘Best of 2007′ list even with another half-year’s worth of releases to come. While darkly eloquent and monumental in its scope, the album isn’t taxing or burdensome. As with adolescence itself, a sense of hope and eventual escape pervades even the darkest track. With this being our first full taste of the capabilities of the Twilight Sad, I can’t even imagine the record they’ll create in the next few years. I debated briefly whether Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters should get the full five marks, but, with the expectation of future recordings surpassing this album, it seems I shall have to wait a little while to give these Scottish boys five gears. I just hope they don’t keep us waiting too long.