Tilly And The Wall
Wild Like Children

THE REVIEW

The best moments to listen to Tilly And The Wall (two guys and two girls from the most remote parts of the United States "discovered" by Bright Eyes) are: at some rustic and wild parties; when you're in the car heading to parties presumed to be rustic and wild; when you're approaching troublesome levels of intoxication and it might start being fun to dance on wooden tables and hug strangers; when there's no reason to make a racket, but you've decided to do it anyway and only need a musical backdrop to support your cheerful desire for devastation.

Then Tilly And The Wall are irreplaceable. Boys and girls sing over each other, dominating tavern choirs over folk bases, with excessive use, as a surrogate or reinforcement for the drums, (yes indeed) of tap dance, at which one of the Tillies is phenomenally skilled. In the final part of the raucous ride "Nights Of The Living Dead" you realize that, while the four sing in chorus "I wanna fuck it up" and "and I feel so alive", the base is given by animalistic stomping on tables and glass bottles smashed against who-knows-what.

"Reckless" (the big single) is the most fitting track, made of tap dance, little guitar, and organ, with the addition of some colorful decoration; in "Bessa" her voice and tap dance create an atmosphere of more nostalgic and isolated country estates, while in "Let It Rain" his voice intertwines with those of the girls and, amid piano guitar and strings, one gets melancholic in company. In other tracks, the more powerful bases and some distorted guitar, hit raw and rough like with a spade ("You And I Misbehaving", "A Perfect Fit"), complete a generally crazy picture. Comparisons are not easy to make ("The Woodlands National Anthem" from Arcade Fire's EP is the only thing that comes to mind to give the idea: but compared to the Canadians, Tilly are decidedly more axed in their sound, as well as more synthesized): the realm is that of an electronically updated folk enriched by some of the protagonists' craziness.

Wild like kids who already speak, or rather scream, of drunkenness, love, and nights ending in glory.