After releasing their new album Power, Twin Atlantic will headline Manchester Academy 2, one of 13 headline UK dates they are playing in March.
Power was released on 24 January, marking their return with their fourth album and first on Virgin EMI. The first hint of taste of the album came in the form of Novocaine.
Speaking about Power, Sam McTrusty explained, “The album is inspired by colours, moods, memories. We just got into a room and started creating. The studio as its own instrument reached a new level – we created nothing outside those walls and it became a physical embodiment of the album itself. POWER is our own example that there’s always a way forward when you are faced with limitations and red lights. It’s reignited our ambition and drive for what we can achieve. Hearing these songs, that’s what I feel and hear: power. And that’s what the last two years have made us feel as a band: totally empowered.”
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Power marks a slight deviation away from the thrusting and gritty guitars of previous album GLA. Instead, the album features a thunderous wave of glorious synths. Talking further about the album, McTrusty commented, “I see it as an arrival rather than a departure. It wasn’t a deliberate plan to be different. We had this new studio with loads of new equipment, we’d lean on something, it would make a cool sound and that would birth a song. It was like being back to the beginning when we started writing and I’d been playing guitar for less than a year, so it was the joy of discovery. We were back to that template of, if you like it just follow it, there are no rules, it doesn’t matter.”
“I think fans will get it but if they don’t, that’s cool, things I loved ten years ago I don’t now, you grow in and out of things. To try and make music for people who like what you did before means we are stuck in a loop. We are doing the opposite, we are trying to forecast what people will like six months from now so they may not like it at first – and we started writing two years ago so we were looking pretty far ahead.”
The band have surprised some with the sound of the album, which owes its roots to electronica and Twin Atlantics love of dance music. “It’s a whole part of our adulthood that we have never let influence our music before” elaborates Sam, “We are from Glasgow, which is world famous for nights out. It’s got this whole culture where you go to a gig then you go to a club night afterwards. For some reason we had separated the two in our heads. Then it was like a moment of arrival we figured out a way to fuse those two things. That is the BIGGEST influence on the whole thing.
“It’s not about us signing to a major label so we’ve made a pop record with synths on it, on the face of it I can see why some people might think that, but it’s turning a corner in our lives and having an awakening.
“We were in our studio in Glasgow and Ross and I had a ‘eureka’ moment where we listened to Felix Da Housecat’s Ready To Wear. Not many people really know that from our world but the sound of that song sparked something, like ‘wait, we could do that but in our own way’. This side of our musical taste has always been there, we just haven’t brought it into what we do before, and it was so stupid. We thought we were only good at this one bit of music so that’s what we need to do. Until now.”
When do Twin Atlantic headline at Manchester Academy 2?
Twin Atlantic headline at Manchester Academy 2 on 10 March 2020. The Manchester gig is one of 13 UK dates they are playing:
3 March – Motherwell, Concert Hall
4 March – Aberdeen, Music Hall
6 March – Dundee, Fat Sams
7 March – Kilmarnock, Grand Hall
9 March – Newcastle, Riverside
10 March – Manchester, Manchester Academy 2
11 March – Sheffield, The Leadmill
13 March – Cardiff, The Tramshed
14 March – Oxford, O2 Academy
15 March – Leicester, O2 Academy
17 March – Bournemouth, Old Firestation
18 March – Brighton, Concorde 2
20 March – London, Electric Ballroom
Image of Twin Atlantic courtesy Katy Cummings
