Tilly and the Wall are great. You may remember them as 'that band with a tap dancer instead of a drummer', but they are so, so much more than that one gimmick. Just listen to Rainbows in the Dark from their second album, Bottoms of Barrels:
This song is pretty much everything I want from music: heavenly horns, an insistent melody, a simple chord pattern, and loads of lyrics, passionately delivered. Oh, and two key changes. The tap shoes are in there too, but their presence sounds like the most natural thing in the world, not the deliberately quirky substitution that most people assume it to be.
Heavy Mood, Tilly and the Wall's most recent album, came out in October 2012, a solid three and a half years ago. If you ask me, a follow-up is long overdue, but the band have been worryingly quiet of late:
- Their official Facebook page hasn't been updated since last August.
- Their Twitter account has been dormant since September 2014.
- Most troublingly of all, the band's website - www.tillyandthewall.com - no longer even exists!
I don't mind waiting for my favourite bands while they work on their albums, but these omens seem to suggest that Tilly and the Wall are never coming back. If true, the world will be a slightly less colourful place for their loss.
