Civil Twilight

Emerging out of Hout Bay, Cape Town in the early 21st century, South African alt-rock quartet Civil Twilight first took shape as a trio, with brothers Steven and Andrew McKellar and their childhood friend, Richard Wouters, banding together in the late 1990s. By 2005, the group – who were avid fans of the sounds coming out of the UK and the US – had relocated to Los Angeles, where they hoped to make it big. Their first album, Human, landed in 2007 via independent label One October, reaching #16 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and spawning a minor hit in “Letters from the Sky”, which entered multiple specialist US genre charts. Aided by a plethora of high-profile song placements on TV shows like House and One Tree Hill, the project put their name on the map, and in the following years, they optimistically made the move to Nashville, Tennessee. However, struggling to translate their newly recorded second LP into a live environment, they opted to recruit a fourth member of the band, inviting their longtime friend Kevin Daily – a guitarist and keyboardist from North Carolina – into the mix to complete the formation. The album, Holy Weather, arrived in March 2012, reaching #124 in the US chart and marking their Billboard 200 debut. Three years on, the four-piece returned with Story of an Immigrant, an introspective effort largely reflecting on the theme of national identity and global citizenship, taking cues from the jubilant regional sounds of their native South Africa.