o hello, It's Tilly and the Wall.

MP3: Tilly and the Wall - Pot Kettle Black

MP3: Tilly and the Wall - Jumbler

Next week sees the release of Tilly and the Wall's "o", the 3rd in their catalogue and the closest they've gotten to recapturing the magic from their debut 2004's "Wild Like Children". Along the way, they seemed to lose the promise they were bursting with, delivering a lackluster sophomore album and completely unlistenable 7 inch single in "Beat Control", so there were little expectations in "o", which happens to work in their favour. Forging through the shit storm, the band deliver a strong, mature sounding effort that almost gets it, with only a few predictable bumps along the way.

Things don't fully kick up until the second song and the album's stand out, "Pot Kettle Black", an example of the right direction for the band to go in. It keeps their tapping and infectious vocals on top of hard hitting drums and a loud, fucking bad ass guitar line. From there, we never reach that high point again, but luckily it fluctuates very little. "Jumbler" and "Dust Me Off" keep things going, and every now and then it trips up, with messes like "Falling Without Knowing", which attempts to dream and float, but ends up floating out of interest, and the absolute rubbish-fest of "Too Excited", a mess of studio dicking around that someone made the mistake of translating into a song.

Of course, that's just looking at the music. Lyrically, this turns into a whole different review. "o"'s nostalgia trip of lost tall grass, high school cattiness and ice cream is a double edged sword: it's enough to rope in listeners with it's charm, but not enough to keep them. As you get through each song, you look for some maturity in the lyrics but it's just not there, which doesn't seem right for a band well into their 3rd album. Musically, they've finally found their sound, mashed between the classic tap dancing and bass and drums rock. Lyrically, we're all still waiting for them to grow up.

"o" is released June 17th from Team Love.

{purchase tilly and the wall recordings from saddle creek}