After recently returning with the superb new single ‘Don’t Quit It’, Scotland’s Twin Atlantic announce their brand new, eighth studio album Separation From The Animals – a declaration of truth and the band’s most brutally honest record, arriving October 2nd via Dance To The Radio.
The announcement is accompanied by the release of simmering new single ‘In Your Eyes’ – heavily-loaded with melancholy. “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,” says frontman Sam McTrusty. “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.”
Separation From The Animals is an album born of two tales of triumph and perseverance – one of McTrusty grappling with his own ghosts, and the other of their finest album to date coming after a time when band morale was at an all time low. The day the band finished work on their last album, 2024’s Meltdown, was also the day McTrusty packed up his entire life and studio to start a new life in Toronto with wife and two kids, unaware of the rich seam of songwriting that it would inspire. In Canada, with just his studio and his past to reconcile with as he navigated his new life, McTrusty found himself in that ‘tunnel’ once again.
“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,” Sam says of his life’s trauma that seems to inform all of his songs in one way or another, and that he is opening up about for the first time. “As you grow up, you start to view life through a different lens – especially the whole struggle of going from boy to man. 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.”
Now with the emotional maturity to face that pain and take ownership of his identity, McTrusty has shaped those feelings into an album that leans on classic ‘60s and ‘70s influences while still maintaining Twin Atlantic’s quintessential heartfelt, anthemic, arena-shaking DNA, with bassist Ross McNae helping steer the record’s transatlantic creation as co-producer. Founding member Barry McKenna also remained integral to the album’s sound, adding key finishing touches in Toronto, marking the first time in years that all four founding members have recorded together on a Twin Atlantic record for years.
Take the huge open-armed rocker of ‘Supersweetness’, drawing on the sounds of The Who and inviting his young daughters onto the backing vocals to drive the point home. While there’s the widescreen beauty in ‘The Risk Of Love Is Always Loss’ and the string-led lighters up moments like ‘Save Your Breath’, ‘Unless It Hurts’ and the perfect closer ‘Feel It All’ laying all the “pain, grieving and suffering” to rest.
There’s plenty of lift too. The hard-hitting ‘Confidant’ “takes our Nirvana influence to the extreme”, McTrusty admits, and ‘Don’t Quit It’ hits that whole lot harder courtesy of drummer Craig Kneale returning for those two tracks. The legendary and highly sought-after session drummer Ash Soan (Snow Patrol, Adele, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa) was brought in to record the other tracks when Craig wasn’t available, but Kneale’s involvement on the record speaks how the band has survived the choppy seas of life.
Releasing eight albums in 13 years while remaining an active, forward-looking creative force and not collapsing into a legacy act is no mean feat. Twin Atlantic have often seen members take a step back or return as they healthily cope with the storm and stress.
The band will also return to the road with a 6-date headline run in October, as well as a summer of outdoor support shows with McFly.
Now, on their most accomplished record to date, the band are at their most raw and exposed, with nothing to hide from anymore.
”This is what we’ve always been but with the veil lifted”, McTrusty concludes. “I hope people hear the record and it inspires them to do that and be more honest with themselves.”
Separation From The Animals – Tracklisting
1. Your, The End
2. In Your Eyes
3. I’m Not Coming Home
4. Don’t Quit It
5. Strong
6. The Risk Of Love Is Always Loss
7. Unless It Hurts
8. Confidant
9. Save Your Breath
10. Supersweetness
11. Lost
12. Feel It All