The Twilight Sad seems an easy enough band to pigeonhole. They sing (or, often, scream) about heartbreak, so shouldn’t they be emo? Lead singer James Graham croons with a thick Scottish accent. Arab Strap, anyone? The group creates epic, emotional songs using instruments ranging from guitars to accordions. Cough, cough Arcade Fire.

The Glasgow quartet, however, transcends sonic cliches and produces unique results. The Twilight Sad merges the storytelling song style of fellow Scots Arab Strap and Belle and Sebastian with the grandiose structures of The Arcade Fire and, most importantly, coat it all in a sheen of shoegaze.

Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, the Twilight Sad’s debut album, features nine emotionally fractured songs wrapped up in blazing guitars and tortured lyrics. It’s one of the best rookie albums of 2007. Always evoking the most downtrodden feelings but never whining enough to constitute emo, Graham and his cohorts have also crafted one of the most heartwrenching and angry records of the young year. The Twilight Sad creates music appropriate for a heavy-hearted stroll down a suburban street at sunset.

Scotland’s saddest brought their brand of melancholy to Chicago’s Subterranean on April 9 as part of the group’s tour supporting their debut. The small venue packed about half its maximum occupancy, not surprising since it was a Monday night. The band was originally supposed to co-headline with fellow Scot-rockers Aereogramme, but received full billing after Aereogramme experienced visa problems and couldn’t make the gig.

The opening acts were polar opposite of the Sad’s style. Chicago’s own Arwin played upbeat power-pop ditties, a far-cry from the forlorn numbers unleashed by The Twilight Sad. Fellow openers A Northern Chorus delivered fragile, slow-developing post-rock songs cluttered with cellos and trumpets. The Twilight Sad, however, followed the KISS template and forewent mass instrumentation for two guitars, a drum kit, some pedals and one old-timey microphone.

Graham stands at the beginning of opener “Cold Days from the Birdhouse.”

The foursome took the stage and opened with “Cold Days from the Birdhouse,” the same emotional rollercoaster that opens Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters. No song better sums up the Twilight Sad’s emotional approach to music better than “Birdhouse.” It starts reserved, with Graham lamenting from the very first lines “Another hotel / with ruined plans / romantic gestures / with ruined plans.” The band slowly builds until erupting into a fury of guitars. Graham stops singing so sadly and starts bellowing out the lyrics through gritted teeth and closed eyes. What separates The Twilight Sad from any band typically labeled “emo” is how they respond to heartbreak in their songs. Instead of wallowing in self-misery for an entire song, the group turns heartache into aggression, focusing rage on the lovers who shattered their hearts in the first place. While gripping the mic stand like a child clutching to his mother, Graham stared off into space and repeated the phrase “Where are your manners?” over and over.

There’s one reason to see The Twilight Sad live, and it isn’t the less-than-energetic guitarists, who just stand still for the majority of the shows. It also isn’t the drummer who, though good, didn’t do anything interesting except break his snare drum in the middle of the show. The reason is lead singer Graham. He performs like a manic-depressive zombie, intently singing with eyes shut one second and then flailing around the stage the next. On “Talking with Fireworks,” Graham grabbed a drumstick and began abusing a cymbal, but when the guitars slowed down, he shot back to the mic and just glared into space as if an ex-romance had walked into the room. Elsewhere, on the gorgeous collage of “Last Year’s Rain Didn’t Fall Quite So Hard,” he focused his gaze onto nothing and downtroddenly repeated the lyric “I only want to say goodbye,” looking as if he could cry at any second. Graham needs to learn a few tricks of the live trade, mainly that he should face the crowd during the show and not stare at the drum for long stretches of time, but he’s plenty capable of putting on an emotional (though sometimes bratty) show.

When The Twilight Sad combine heavy emotions with driving rhythms, they go into top form and truly are one of the best young bands around. The album version of “That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy” chugs along, but is buoyed by a depressing accordion. In person, the group avoided using any instruments outside guitars and drums, so “Invisible” became a flat-out rocker instead, with brilliant results. The night’s finest song, and the band’s best work thus far, was “And She Would Darken the Memory,” the group’s angriest number. Graham continued with the “grip mic tightly” routine as he softly and sadly sang “Head up dear, you’re shallow and blind,” but started becoming more rage-filled with the lyrics “friendly faces with put on smiles / a drunken mind game past.” At the next repetition of the original line, the guitars exploded with sound while he exploded with movement, grabbing the mic stand and violently thrusting it around the stage. “Memory” stood out as the most emotionally-charged song of the night, sounding heartbreaking but justifiably angry track.

Playing for only 45 minutes, The Twilight Sad set still needs time to develop, but the group has got pained emotion down. They need to work on overall energy and between-song banter, but sonically they’ve carved out their own depressed niche and created some of the most exciting sounds of the year. As the final song of the night transformed into an ear-hurting wave of feedback, Graham stood still, eyes locked on nothing, looking completely detached from the world around him. At this moment, The Twilight Sad and Graham showed what they do best: portray morose bleakness with the world; focused, regardless of how much buzzing is going on around them.

Photos by Spencer Kornhaber.