By JONATHAN GEDDES

KILMARNOCK rockers Twin Heart reckon they’re open to criticism – and that’s why they’re going places.

The trio headline King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut tomorrow night, as part of the Rock N’ Roll Damnation series of gigs that have been taking place across Glasgow over the past week.

The gigs have focused on spotlighting hard rock and pop punk bands, with Twin Heart one of an emerging Scottish contingent, having released snappy pop singles like Ghosts and last year’s release Failure of Another.

Drummer Murray Baxter thinks the group being open with each other helps their songwriting.

“We try to work to each other’s strengths and we’re all open to criticism from each other,” he says.

“We don’t take anything personally, we just work as a unit. Some songs can take three hours to finish, some can take three weeks, but we’ll get there. We’ve got our own rehearsal room, so we can practice and jam whenever we like.”

Twin Heart formed last year out of the ashes of Mechanical Smile, a foursome that contained both Murray and singer Dawn Marshall. They decided that a fresh start was required after both their guitarist and bassist decided to move onto new pastures, and after adding bassist Owen Burst Twin Heart was born, with recent EP Progress: Decline their latest step.

“I think what comes across is how honest and passionate we are about what we’re doing,” says Murray.

“People can relate to the lyrics in different ways, and it stamps our mark with the new style – somebody tagged us as being an aggressive pop band and I quite liked that term. We get called an emo band a lot and I get that, and I do like emo, but aggressive pop sums it up even better because we’ve got passion and energy but we can be quite subtle and poppy at the same time.”

Music is literally Murray’s day job, too, as he’s a music lecturer at Ayrshire College, while Dawn studies tourism there. That means the group have to work around their other commitments, but the drummer believes that’s actually a good thing, as it focuses the band more.

“I’d only begun teaching when Mechanical Smile finished, but now it’s a case of trying to target tours more rather than one off gigs,” he explains.

“I’ll target the Easter holidays, the summer holidays and in October for when we can get a tour booked. It means we don’t have the freedom to tour as and when we want, but now we’re setting ourselves short-term goals.”

Those goals include making a success of Progress: Decline and, of course, tomorrow night’s show at King Tut’s. Murray has been pleased to see Rock N’ Roll Damnation become a regular August occurrence over the past couple of years, with American bands like Good Charlotte and the Bronx joined by local talent for shows all over Glasgow.

“As a fan of that sort of music from a young age it’s great to see a festival dedicated to the rocky side of things,” adds Murray.

“You see a lot of package tours like the NME Tour, and it’s all indie bands, or the summer festivals like T In The Park are very mainstream, so it’s good to have a darker festival happening.

There’s one band in particular Murray is keen to see return to Scotland someday – so Twin Heart could support them.

“I’d love to play with Alexisonfire if they ever came back,” he says, referring to the Canadian punk band.

“I’m dreaming they’ll be back before they call it a day again as they were a huge influence on us. Last year they did Reading and Leeds and I missed it, which I was devastated about! I remember seeing them at King Tut’s for a couple of nights, maybe back in 2005 or so, and they were brilliant.”

Twin Heart, King Tut’s, Friday, £7, 8.30pm