READ FULL REVIEW FROM SOUTH SONIC HERE

 It's always a double-edged sword when a band releases a debut album that receives such lofty praise as Tellison did with 2007's Contact! Contact! On the one hand as a statement of intent, people certainly take notice of you, but on the downside you know that at some point you have to release an album that meets or exceeds the benchmark that you have drawn for yourself; the old cliché of the difficult second album.  On The Wages of Fear, Tellison find themselves in just such a predicament.

Diehard fans of the first album might feel that they haven't quite reached the standard that they have set for themselves, maybe that this album, whilst still mining a very similar musical seam, isn't as immediate as their explosive debut offering.  The songs maybe have a more considered quality, allowing the natural maturing of the band to play its part and it's this natural evolution, this ability to grow with the target audience that will ensure that they stay relevant. Often placed into pigeonholes that don't quite do them justice, they seem to skirt so many genres without fitting neatly into any one - much in the same way bands like Tubelord do. 

‘Collarbone' is driven by a punk-pop vibe, but suggests a much longer shelf life than anything that genre has thus far produced and at the other extreme ‘Tell it To Thebes' manages to fill its allotted space with atmosphere rather than out and out delivery. It is the ability to wander between punch and pathos that sets the scene for the album.

Words such as explosive and anthemic seem to be banded around often without good cause these days, but they are exactly the words to describe The Wages of Fear. This is proven just after halfway through the album with the brilliant ‘Horses', a wonderful blend of indie-rock drive, pop melodies and quirky little math rock riffs wandering about in the background. ‘Rapture' uses the same tricks but does so in a more wistful fashion.

The Wages of Fear is an album that could easily be the soundtrack to a lot of people's summer experiences. It is musically positive, even when the lyrics are dealing with slightly darker subjects such as ‘Letters from Pre-Med', packed with memorable moments of dynamic change and air punching infectiousness.

It has been a long time coming but the concept of the difficult second album has been blown out of the water. The Wages of Fear is a future classic.