Tilly And The Wall - Heavy Mood

Well, isn’t this nice? Tilly And The Wall are still around, still trying to incite a “love riot” as the opening track to ‘Heavy Mood’ implies. The energy of the unrelenting guitar riffs spills over into the title-track but picks up some strong male vocals and spiky synths along the way. Oh, and handclaps. Lots of handclaps. Surely this kind of energy can’t last the entire album?

Well, no, not really. Half way through, the “woah-oh-ohs” of ‘Thick Of Thieves’ hark back to older Tilly And The Wall, in a nice, ‘we’re sisters, that’s never gonna change’ way. Before that, though, the boundless enthusiasm leaves you scratching your head, because really, aren’t Tilly and the Wall a little too old to be singing about living how they want? Guys, ‘You And I Misbehaving’ was eight years ago.

For an album named ‘Heavy Mood’, things don’t really get serious until the latter part of the record, when things slow down for ‘Hey Rainbow’. Its meandering softness isn’t forgettable, but it’s hardly the most interesting thing you’ll hear all year. The same applies to the false-sounding emotions of ‘I Believe In You’.

There’s a lack of progression from previous albums that makes ‘Heavy Mood’ a bit of a disappointment. As the defiantly jubilant ‘Defenders’ wraps things up, you can’t help but feel that this is an album a band a lot younger than Tilly And The Wall should’ve made. You can’t sing “can’t tell us what to do / can’t tell us who to be” when you’re doing exactly what you’ve been doing all this time.