Tilly And The Wall - Wild Like Children (Cover Artwork)

Tilly And The Wall

Wild Like Children (2004)

Team Love


After a promising 3-song 7" on Rue Royale Records we are given Tilly And The Wall's first full length, Wild Like Children. Wild Like Children comes with much hype surrounding it because it's the first on Conor Oberst's new label, Team Love. Tilly hails from Omaha, NE (big shocker!) and is a five piece of quite young and talented musicians. They come across as your typical Omaha/Saddle Creek sound mixed with Neutral Milk Hotel. But that doesnt mean that this record is at all boring or repetitive.

Wild Like Children is a bright beam of light that somehow managed to creep out of the snow covered wasteland that it was recorded in. Songs about being drunk and making out and late Saturday night adventures, this album covers a lot of innocent times that I'm sure most of us will gladly look back and smile at. Boy and girl harmonies as sweet as sugar and a desperate sonic landscape of guitars, keyboards, and tapdancing. Yes, that's right, Tilly manages to get their percussion from a tapdancer and from beating on random items (leather suitcases, trashcan lids, etc.).

The highlight of the album comes in the form of the song "You And I Misbehaving." "Just you and I misbehaving / oh trying our best to feel alive / we won't ever let them win / when we are younger oh our hearts are so much bolder" really gives you the idea of just how innocent and anxious this band is. You really get the feeling that this band is having a lot of fun recording all their heartaches.