Wannabe paleontologists The Tailors’ second album, Come Dig Me Up, is brilliantly varied, blending folk and country sounds seamlessly and addressing themes that range from extinction to teenage angst.
Adam Killip’s quavering voice is tinged with a fragility that sharpens the emotional impact of his lyrics to dangerous extremes, and for this reason we do not recommend listening to this album in public. Come Dig Me Up is dominated by melancholia, as in ‘Pictures of Her’ where a bedroom becomes “a dungeon of doom” and memories of a lost love are committed to “the void” whilst Killip considers a purgative bonfire.
But the occasional ray of hope shines through on tracks like upbeat ‘Animal Humour’ and delicately beautiful ‘Impossible Wonder’, where angry feedback sits comfortably beside the gentlest of melodies. Naivety, desire and cynicism vie for precedence in this multifarious song, before settling for an equal draw.
The title track is quiet, restrained, and narrated by a dinosaur. The inclusion of this large-toothed, cold-skinned character is typical of this album, which continually lulls you into submission before thwacking you on the head with a lovely surprise. The dinosaur fellah invites the listener to “come dig me up some time”, which is perhaps the most original chat-up line to ever be uttered. I’ll certainly be trying it as soon as the opportunity arises.
‘Mush Love’ is straight out of the Steven Patrick Morrissey school of lyric-writing, with such gems as “you’re pretty – pretty forgettable baby”, “take care of love before it turns on us” and “hey, everything has a shelf life”. The witty cynicism of tracks like this and ‘Crocodiles’ temper the delicate beauty of the majority, leaving us with a brilliantly well-balanced, poetic album that will speak truth to us all.
Words: Helen True