After popping up as the secret act at TRNSMT Festival in their home city of Glasgow last weekend, Scottish rock trio Twin Atlantic are back with a new single and album, and tour dates for the end of this year to showcase them.
Announced with a reveal trailer earlier this week, ‘Separation From The Animals’ will be their eighth full-length release, following up from 2024’s ‘Meltdown’. So far, the group dropped single ‘Don’t Quit It’ in May, a pulsing drum and bass guitar-led hard rock anthem – now it has company in the shape of new track ‘In Your Eyes’ which came out today.
‘In Your Eyes’ is a slower, more sombre affair, an introspective indie rock ballad with deep lyrics and beautifully-pained vocal hooks. Twin Atlantic frontman Sam McTrusty explains the theme, saying “it’s about being at the other end of a relationship where you feel like no matter what you do, nothing is ever good enough.” However, he notes that it’s an optimistic message, adding “you take a step back and realise that in trying to appease that one person, you’ve blinded yourself to the fact that everything is great. Look outside of that window and life is much better.”
The album was a product of McTrusty’s relocation to Canada with his family following ‘Meltdown’ and its subsequent campaign. The massive changes allowed him the distance from his past to examine it properly, and allowed him to reset creatively. He spoke of the experience – “I’m from a family that’s fairly divided, so I’ve always been passed about from when I was six-months-old. It’s all I’ve ever known. As you grow up, you start to view life through a different lens – especially the whole struggle of going from boy to man.”
Channelling the emotions from the self-discovery journey, he also mentions how it brought new focus back to music and Twin Atlantic, saying “My experience of that is particularly painful, emotional and confusing. But because it seemed normal at the time, it didn’t really hit me until I found my tribe, my people, my band. My entire adult life is meant to have been looking ahead but my personal life is always looking back. That baggage is basically what the whole band is about. This is what we’ve always been but with the veil lifted. I hope people hear the record and it inspires them to do that and be more honest with themselves.”
The group popped up for a hometown show at Glasgow’s TRNSMT Festival this weekend as a hotly tipped secret act. Currently out on a run of summer dates, first with The Xcerts at the start of June and now with McFly, Twin Atlantic announced the October tour supporting ‘Separation From The Animals’ earlier today. The tour will see them again link up with fellow Scottish alternative rock band The Xcerts.
‘Separation From The Animals’ releases on the 2nd of October through independent label Dance to the Radio. Tickets for the October headlining tour go on sale at 10am on Friday the 25th of June. Check the poster below for the full run of dates:
