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Although Tellison are only now releasing their sophomore LP, it's not surprising that they are already a well-respected cornerstone of the UK's burgeoning melodic pop-punk talent pool.  In a scene where ephemerality is commonplace and the development of a band can go from zero to break up in just a matter of months, the London four-piece has laboured since 2003 to build a small catalogue of perfectly crafted alt-pop songs and a following of smart and reverent music fans. By keeping company with mainstay UK indies such as Big Scary Monsters, Banquet Records, and Gravity Dip, the band has continued their steady progression from their first split EP with long-lost but not forgotten Northampton band Seven Years to their second studio album - The Wages of Fear.

Tellison seems to have traded some of their characteristic fight-pop gravitas, the very essence of Contact! Contact! with tracks like Hanover Start Clapping and New York New York New York, for a more linear collection of pop/rock tracks.  Take Collarbone, for instance, the album's first single; anchored by a friendly and steady bit of rhythm guitar that carries the song all the way through, the album's first single is naturally a good indicator of the album's overall tone - at least musically. A close juxtaposition of Contact! Contact! and The Wages of Fear reveals equally weighty subject matter.  Horses chronicles a "bad four years," while Tell It To Thebes literally tells the tale of "a cold, drunk man." More despondency abounds in tracks like Rapture and Know Thy Foe.

Tellison surely have not lost their tempered bits of melancholy and self-reflection, a hallmark of all good songwriters. 

They have, however, altered their delivery.  The group shouts have disappeared, and the dissonance has subsided. Left in its wake is a collection of 12 well-articulated alternative pop songs, with standout tracks here, there, and in between. Tell It To Thebes, which was first formally premiered via a Manchester Scenewipe acoustic session, is one of the album's more spirited standouts. The charming and melancholic, if not slightly tongue-in-cheek, Freud Links the Teeth with the Heart has been demoed in solo efforts by front man Stephen Davidson for years, and makes a welcome appearance as a tempo breaker between the album's first single and the aforementioned fiery Horses.  The newest single, Edith (which has since dropped the longstanding Wharton) anchors the album near the tail end, and is followed only by the heart-wrenching closer,  "My Wife's Grave is in Paris."

While the band's spirit remains the same, a new Tellison with an enlarged sense of musical self and a heightened penchant for melody has emerged in line with The Wages of Fear - much to the delight of old and new fans alike.

Words by Liz Jones