Formed in late 2003 just outside Glasgow, the Twilight Sad thrives on marrying menace with melody, sparkling hypnotics with anthemic pageantry, oblique poetry with emotional catharsis. The quartet's 2006 self-titled Fat Cat debut EP offered a scorching, deeply heartfelt introduction, flush with Andy MacFarlane's intricate guitar shimmers and squalls and powered by the forceful-but-nuanced, occasionally Joy Division-like rhythm section of bassist Craig Orzel and drummer Mark Devine.

Churning tugs of the accordion - also courtesy of MacFarlane - brought an additional hot glow to the EP's magnificent dynamics, and among it all, James Graham's brick-wall-thick Scottish brogue - oddly bristling with both tenderness and fury - threw long-lingering imagery and full-throated heroics into the tempest.

The following year's full-length for the same label, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, delivered upon all of the bold-stroked promises made by the debut EP, pushing the lads' widescreen-epic proclivities even further. Graham possesses a genuine gift for mixing emotionally direct confessions with curiously obtuse turns of phrase, and many of the song titles have an equally ear-grabbing declaratory nature to them: take "That Summer, At Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy," or "And She Would Darken the Memory," for example.

Along the way - between the first EP, album, a couple of singles, and a second EP (2008's Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did for the same label) - the quartet had also orchestrated an accompanying visual aesthetic just as arresting as their sound. Each release has been lavished with distinctive artwork from someone listed in the liner notes simply as "dlt" - the sleeves faithfully replicate the three-color-palette children's book illustrations of the '30s and '40s (think Dick and Jane books here), but inject the otherwise-kitschy designs with decidedly creepier elements.

Their first EP shows a pair of schoolchildren reading a book despite being engulfed in flames; their next one offers a small mask-covered boy about to smother his sleeping mother with a pillow. The mix of young whimsy and impending violence is a potent one, and it serves well as a visual statement-of-purpose for the ensemble. An amusing footnote: earlier versions of iTunes had identified the Twilight Sad's genre as "Children's Music" - either whoever made that determination had a snarky sense of humor, or clearly wasn't paying attention at all. Fun to imagine this stuff accompanying morning recess or kindergarten snack break, though.

Killed My Parents and Hit the Road takes the now-distinctive art aesthetic of the outfit and applies it brilliantly to Raymond Pettibon's iconic illustration for Sonic Youth's classic Goo (DGC/Geffen), re-configuring the pulp-comic characters of the original cover as a pair of the mask-wearing young rapscallions from previous Twilight Sad releases. Whether this is courtesy of the same aforementioned "dlt," I'm not sure. The disc doesn't credit the artist, though my guess is yes.

It's an inspired homage, and should hopefully remind listeners that these folks aren't as serious as their recordings might sometimes suggest. Still, I'd be lying if I said that the EP didn't have its moments of intensity. The first half is culled from a roaring, riveting live performance that I imagine must have wowed fellow firework-throwing Scots Mogwai enough to select them as tourmates last year. Much of the band's careful attention to nuance has been temporarily tabled in favor of bludgeoning, 130-decibel fury, dispensing with the accordion and other subtler touches and instead hurling themselves into the sort of storming wall-of-noise clatter associated with My Bloody Valentine performances.

The disc opens with a vicious howl, a feedback-drenched squall that is half jet engine, half dinosaur - huge and threatening and likely to raise every hair on the back of the neck. And so "Walking for Two Hours" kicks off as a clear warning of exactly this unit is capable of onstage - I could almost feel the burn in my eyes of the inevitable blast of hot white light that likely accompanied such sonic fury.

Having gotten the initial muscle-flexing declaration out of the way, they then pull back slightly to set up a steadily surging push of shimmering guitars and a hypnotic, propulsive rhythm - echoes of English sweeping-epic poppers Doves. Quickly enough, MacFarlane's ripples of guitar gather the necessary momentum to swell into veritable tidal waves, shoved along by Devine's punishing drum attacks. Graham exorcises a few demons in the process, not so much shouting the line, "Because you're so far from home / and you're wailing," but rather expelling it as the only option for survival. Intense stuff, and there's plenty more catharsis to be had.

"Walking" is followed by what might be their signature anthem, "That Summer at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy." The warm sighs of the studio version's accordion have been replaced with radiant keyboards, and they make a mighty contrast with the angrier guitars of the live performance. "Is the past outside / or in this lovely home?" Graham asks, part tender plea, part teeth-baring snarl. Before one can decide, out comes the troubling chorus against squalls of feedback. "The kids are on fire, in the bedroom."

"Untitled #28" is a previously unreleased track - a work-in-progress, perhaps, intended for the next album? - loaded with My Bloody Valentine-recalling detuned guitars, ricocheting cymbals, and a dense atmospheric hum of keyboards. "Don't frown," Graham offers over a torrent of crashing rhythms, "'cause everybody's wearing black clothes when I'm wearing white." Not sure what this means, but it's delivered with such conviction - amid many lyrical references to secrets and lies - that it's tough not to imagine some serious human-drama at work here.

"Cold Days from the Birdhouse," which has already seen two fascinating incarnations in their studio work, here receives yet another inspired makeover. This time round, the electronic jitters, piano twinkles, and minor-chord, understated guitar of versions one and two have been replaced by a whirring, meditative hum at the song's opening, over which Graham gives one of his most nuanced vocal performances to date. At the two-minute mark, however, the song erupts in a rage of thundering drums and endlessly layered howls of guitar feedback.

The decision to cover Joy Division should hardly come as a shock: the Twilight Sad has long displayed an affinity for the legendary Mancunians, and the insistent rhythms of "And She Would Darken the Memory" could even be considered a portent of things to come. Still, when their take on "Twenty Four Hours" arrives at the disc's midway point, it's tough to stifle the squeals of delight. The song is treated with considerable reverence - witness the purposeful introduction, with its chugging guitar melodics and its carefully controlled, danger-approaches drumming. Graham does an impressive job in evoking Ian Curtis without aping him, but ultimately infuses the song with more snarling menace - a component also enhanced by the towering walls of guitar feedback threatening to topple over at any moment.

The disc's other covers are perhaps a little less obvious: the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Modern Romance" is a sorrowful confession crooned tenderly over an insistent circular guitar pattern, while the Smiths' "Half A Person" wonderfully replaces Morrissey's inescapably maudlin persona with a considerably sweeter, less self-deflating vocal. Tackling the Smiths is no less risky than taking a swing at Joy Division, but the Twilight Sad know exactly what they're doing, and ultimately this delicate acoustic miniature might be Killed My Parents and Hit the Road's shining moment. Strip away the shredding chaos that largely informs the ensemble's work - particularly onstage - and at the core there is still a gently beating heart.

Here's a clip of the Twilight Sad performing "And She Would Darken the Memory":