Twin Atlantic’s Meltdown is a band catching fire once more, but with a sharper, more considered flame. After a stint of creative wandering, the Glasgow rockers have returned, not to their roots, but to the heart of what makes them tick. This album isn’t a nostalgia trip; it’s a finely tuned balance of past victories and hard-earned wisdom.
With frontman Sam McTrusty and bassist Ross McNae steering the ship, the band built their own studios, shutting out the noise of external influence. The result? A record that veers from the full-throttle exhilaration of ‘World Class Entertainment’ to the reflective depths of ‘Snow in Texas.’ Meltdown is Twin Atlantic with the dial turned all the way up to eleven—a band in full command of their powers, embracing both their history and their future.
World Class Entertainment
Ross: A big old riff that spelt out the vocal. We could do 11 of these tunes on a record but one must have balance, show restraint! We were thinking about this type of song in one session. Sam said what about a riff and this one came straight out on the guitar, and then we were off. It’s been used a lot in sports already, which we love and laugh at in equal amounts. As soon as we had the tune, we said this would be the football one for Match Of The Day, and it was, and it was, and it is. It’s been a lot of fun to play this summer. Fits right into the must-haves on the festival setlist.
Harder
Ross: From the word go, I wanted to make a pseudo Happier Than Ever (Billie Eilish) with this song. Barry really brought this song to life with the intro. Holding back the song’s drop until the end makes it feel so much heavier. A lot of mixed emotions within the lyrical content of the song.
Meltdown
Ross: I was on FaceTime with Sam, and we did what we did. I can’t remember what song we were working on, but I suddenly stumbled upon the little arpeggio and said I’d call him back. Ten minutes later, there was a loop with some drums and bass. When I sent it to him, I called it ‘U2 x Twin’. Sam wrote the vocal melody in one take in a dressing room when we were touring later in the year – it was as simple as that. We played it for the first time at a festival in Scotland’s highlands a week or two ago. It gave me a moment I haven’t had with our new music for years – it felt raw and emotional and like this is still what we should be doing.
Lift
Ross: I was writing a song with another artist, and I showed him a demo I made that morning, expecting him to come into the studio. We worked on it and had something cool going on, but a month or so later, I ended up WhatsApp him to say I think I’m going to use the original demo. I sent it to Sam, and we started to mould it into something more Twin – it was more indie as a demo. I then swung the other way and wasn’t sure about its place on the record, but after some space, it totally earned its spot. It adds something sonically lighthearted and less intense than a lot of the other songs. Like I said earlier on, it’s all about balance. After making so many Twin records I think we’ve got better at making those calls. I wouldn’t change a thing about it.
Snow In Texas
Ross: One day, we decided to try something new and old at the same time. We ditched the studio and sat in my living room instead. Lying back on the couch, away from the computer, your mind goes to different places. We tried to dive into equal parts memory and imagined memory – a lot of those moments are real, but there’s a lot of artistic license, too. Finishing the album with this one makes a lot of sense. For years we’d been obsessed with the studio and possibly taken our eyes off of what constitutes a great song. I’m not saying all the songs on this record would go into the Scottish songbook, but I think we’ve recaptured the song for ourselves. Getting away from the screen and being a little more organic ties a bow on the whole project. We remade best friendships, made a new best friend along the way, and remembered what Twin Atlantic is all about. It’s been a humbling experience.
Asleep
Sam: I love rock albums that start with an anthemic call to arms… setting the tone, energy and messaging of the record. I’m still so pumped by how good we got the guitars sounding on the album, considering we recorded them in a garage studio. It’s been many, many years since we’ve done a classic rock build-up and half-time release. It still feels so good.
Stuck In A Car With You
Sam: This song was written in a really deliberate way. I had a gut feeling that we needed a mega uptempo foot down on the accelerator from start to finish type of song on the record. This was one of the last tracks written but the first one we put out. It has a mega nod to Blink 182 and AC/DC, but with Barry’s guitar playing, he managed to take the idea and run with it. The concept of the song sounds a bit off the wall or chaotic, but the meaning is really very personal to me, and it is seriously cathartic to be able to sing this with so much energy.
Sorry
Sam: This might be one of my all-time favourite Twin songs. It shows a real development of writing a song for a rock band over all these years and it’s just so tasteful and pro. All this while having a really honest and open storyline at its core. Sonically, it’s maybe one of the more complicated layered tracks, but it still sits well on the album. The group vocals are from the demo… there was just a great energy from day one. A message to my kids in the future.
Get Out
Sam: The fact we recorded and produced this record on our own meant we wanted to have a few songs that just exploded out of the speakers. This was the first song where we designed the music around that. It was originally written as an acoustic folk song, and when we got our rock brains around it, we just went to the extreme with dynamics and, if I’m honest, just showing off a little bit about our understanding of how to make something melodic still sound huge. There were definitely massive nods to our Foo Fighters fandom on this one, and we dipped into our memory banks of working with the legendary producer Gil Norton at the start of our career.
I Couldn’t Miss You Much More
Sam: This is quite a painful song for me, and it’s revisiting old wounds lyrically that got me into songwriting originally – but as we experimented and evolved over the years, it didn’t make sense to keep covering this theme or ground. Now, we were back in the rock territory and song structures. It just came so naturally to me to open back up old case files, but as an adult who’s lived a bit now, It has a nasty, filthy wedge of rock at the end that I can’t wait to play live.
Fall
Sam: This is a classic Twin Atlantic slab of uplifting power pop rock – drums full tilt. Guitars slamming. Barry’s riffs soaring over the whole thing. Thunderous low-end and an on-the-nose mega-chorus message. It’s the whole band’s sound condensed into one song. For years, I’ve tried having a moment in a song where the chorus chords flip order as a drop-down, and it never ever worked, but I managed to make it happen on this one as a personal little victory!
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