In these crazy days of “kids” throwing bottles at pretty boys on stage, another sound of hitting the deck was going on elsewhere across the way in that field in Reading. As the sound of Panic At the Disco front man making contact with the stage floor echoed out across the land, a bunch of cheery folk were hitting their feet in almighty twee destruction to the sounds of strong vocal melodies and gallons of harmony. Tilly and the Wall are the resulting emission of a Belle and Sebastian wet dream. Dripping with sickly sweet ditties, odes of joy and bundles of truly brilliant and oh-so-dreamy bursts of absolute HAPPY.

This the second album from the Conor Oberst protégés is a chaotic explosion of immediate sounding and stupidly memorable songs that will coarse through

your mind like rainbows in the evening setting sun. This album is a perfect piece of pop, steeped in 60’s influences, the naivety of youth and the sheer abandon that goes with the adventures of being young. The tap dancing percussion is not a gimmick. It is a considered use of instrumentation and a vital layer to the musical medley. The distinctive sound that was set out in debut album ‘Wild Like Children’ is taken to a whole new enchanted World. “Rainbow in the Dark” is a curious and brooding tune that flutters by with a healthy skip in the step with its soaring ascending vocal melody.

The bittersweet nature of the lyrics on this album and the change of tempo without a moments thought make ‘Bottoms of Barrels’ a perfect album for the whole year round. Seasonal in it’s mood and varied in what it has to offer, you will struggle to find a more informative without being didactic musical experience in a collection of songs. Lyrics of urgency and teenage fumbles under backseat moonlight; “girls and boys and full frustration St. Valentine, I think I taste it” are set to the Flamenco sound that forms the salsa to the incredible wrap of ‘Bad Education’. And just like that, we come across ‘Lost Girls’, another downshift in tempo that meanders with sweet female vocal and ambling guitar until the additional layers of instrumentation, tap and dreaminess are brought in for the polyphonic vocal cascade of the chorus.

‘Sing Songs Along’ is a brutal, yet baby-soft rhythmically driven song of note. The kind of life-affirming realisation moment, you know, like that bit in Garden State–where screaming on Diggers is the only thing in life that makes sense. This song needs rain, it needs tears and it needs company. Songs for realisation moments such as these also need health and social warnings: If circumstance is the dictator of feeling, then let this album rule over you.

‘Bottoms of Barrels’ will be your album-bought-on-a-whim of the year. It will fit so snug in your record collection and make appearances as and when it is needed and you will enjoy it thoroughly, ridden with glee: It having been an event of no small energy expenditure as you get out your trusty tray on which to hopelessly try and tap along. Tilly and the Wall are coming and they are bringing Tap back on a vessel of luscious twee cheerfulness. Tilly and the Wall Dance Mat anyone?

www.tillyandthewall.com

Review by James Ainsworth