Tall Ships - Will To Life

Tall Ships have always been masters of euphoria. Debut full-length ‘Everything Touching’ took the Brighton-via-Falmouth trio from sketchy math-rock through to enormous, stadium-filling swells of emotion, each track worthy of lighters-aloft, arms-outstretched mania. With ‘Will To Life’, the first recorded glimpse of their upcoming second record, the now-four-strong group have ramped things up one hell of a notch.

In many respects, it’s business as usual. It’s still a swirling, giddy ebb-and-flow of guitars and skittish drumming, with frontman Ric Phelan spilling his vertebral column tingling odes to his soulmate in typically scientifically verbose form (try shoehorning that “incandescent core” line into your next Tinder proposal, if you dare). But ‘Will To Life’ shows a more muscular side to Tall Ships, too. Away from the balladry and Valentine’s card worthy sentiments, the group have been skulking in the shadows, chiseling away at their sonics and crafting a denser, fuller version of themselves. Protein shakes cast aside and beach-ready new bodies ready for unveiling (metaphorically, they’re still skinny, foppish indie blokes really), ‘Will To Life’ is a gut punch of a single, and the first hint that Tall Ships’ upcoming second full length might just smash them straight through that scenester-built glass ceiling, and towards those larger stages their sound begs to sit upon.