It’s relatively small change for a band like, say, Def Leppard, but it’s been five long years since Tilt released their promising mini-album, Million Dollar Wound. Where they’ve been until now isn’t immediately clear, though they have boosted their line-up from the initial trio and singer Paul Dourley has graduated from ‘featured’ vocalist on Million Dollar… to this album’s starting line-up.
It’s bassist Steve Vantsis who’s doing most of the heavy lifting though, best known for his work with Fish, he’s not only co-written all the material, but produced, arranged and edited everything too, though the album’s glorious sheen might just be down to John Mitchell’s (Frost, Lonely Robot) mix.
You can see why Mitchell was the right man for the job with a record that teeters somewhere between prog’s grandeur and hard rock’s middle ground, mixing up the epic sounding title track with punchier (if you can call five minutes punchy) material like Strontium Burning. It’s a little bare-chested, foot on the monitor, in places and might unsettle you if your favourite album is Relayer, but this isn’t a world away from where Steven Wilson is positioning himself right now. Let’s not leave it so long next time.
