Tilly Valentine and Jackson Mathod make ‘False Alarm’ impossible to shake

I love a song you’re ready to sing back before the first chorus has finished. Tilly Valentine and Jackson Mathod have made one with ‘False Alarm’, out today, 13th November. It’s a gorgeous meeting of Tilly’s soulful pop and Jackson’s jazz trumpet, and I’d play it for anyone who wanted to know what I love about her voice. There’s plenty to enjoy in the way the single comes together, but she’s the reason I want to hear it again.

Tilly is trying to talk some sense into a friend whose love interest keeps changing his mind. She’s watched this happen often enough to know how it ends, and you get an idea of how long she’s been biting her tongue when she compares him to a boomerang. I love how little time the song spends on him as a person. He’s a nuisance who keeps coming back. The friendship is where the feeling is.

The chorus is so satisfying. Tilly spends the verses trying to spell out what she sees, then boils the whole mess down to two words. There’s an exasperated affection in the writing I recognise from conversations with friends: you want to spare them another miserable evening, and you know they’ll probably give him another chance anyway. Somehow the warning ends up being the part you most want to sing.

I’m glad Jackson gets room for a trumpet solo. By then the chorus has said everything it needs to, and I’d rather hear where he takes the tune than have another verse explaining the situation. The little wordless refrain is a lovely touch, too. It keeps the pleasure of singing along going after Tilly has run out of advice.

‘False Alarm’ review

Tilly’s voice is stunning here. I love her singing on a song with this much personality, where a little impatience and a lot of affection belong in the same performance. The trumpet solo is one of my favourite parts because it gives me a second reason to stay with a single whose chorus would have been enough to win me over.

I’d put ‘False Alarm’ straight on again. It’s catchy enough to make me forget how fed up the words are, then funny enough to make me pay attention to them all over again. What a lovely single.

Listen to ‘False Alarm’ on Spotify.