It’s fitting that The Lilacs’ debut shares its name with a film starring Gal Gadot, because neither can act like real humans with the remotest believability. This band is actually a lab experiment grown in Wigan, funded by Big Bucket Hat to embody the inarguable ideal of Northern indie music.
The cover story is that The Lilacs are a bunch of top lads who do top lad things. They probably enjoy some footy on the weekend; they definitely enjoy a Madri or two at the pub after work. In terms of the music they like? Oasis are a fair shout; Arctic Monkeys; The Courteeners, if they’re feeling daring. And when you take all of that normie energy and juice it into ten tracks, you get Keeping Up With The Joneses.
There’s one critical error, though. Whoever spearheaded this development forgot to account for how, as per the concept of humanity, even the most average, unremarkable, median-of-all-medians specimen will have a trait of their own. The Lilacs…do not.
It’s attitude that’s the problem, or the lack thereof. The Lilacs’ mode of operation is so chipper and simple, almost naively so. There’s not a wrinkle or blemish to be found, not in lyrics or performance or outlook. What emerges is a totally blank philosophy to make music from—keep on keeping on and take life as it comes; no need to worry about anything else! If The Lilacs were at all personable, there could be some warming reassurance to this. Sadly, that’s too much for these cardboard cutouts of the aggregated 20-something, and Keeping Up With The Joneses lands on some of the most stakeless music put to wax this decade, if not longer.
The processed, uncannily ‘everyman’ finish pushes it deeper than mere indie-pop mediocrity, though. Not one word sung feels lived-in; a personal touch is an abhorred concept. Thus, Miss Behavin’ and Girl Behind The Bar are more archetype than song, where the rush of love is reduced to a laminated cheat sheet. (Grace inserts the sole identifiable detail that the girl in question is wearing a bucket hat, though that could be there just to please the band’s aforementioned benefactors.) As for the three-in-a-row of the title track, If The Jacket Fits (Then It’s Yours To Wear) and What’s The Worst That Could Happen?, the ten-a-penny pearls of ‘wisdom’ are so trite and empty. The last of them invoking the old man on the bus as a shorthand for legitimisation is about as obvious as it gets. The Lilacs’ inability to rock the boat, then, renders Vicarage Road’s attempt at drama functionally useless, between its too-obvious narrative and bright, plastic mix.
It reaches a point where it’s borderline impossible to be impressed by Keeping Up With The Joneses. A demeanour this breezy, easygoing and straight-laced can’t take the pressure of being more. Disposability therefore becomes The Lilacs’ premier trait, more so than even their fellow localised, unadventurous indie chancers. Songs like Miss Behavin’ and Asking For A Friend only burst with true exuberance if you’ve got no other reference point; otherwise, they’re flimsy pieces of pop-rock ephemera.
There’s also that horrible, tinny guitar tone that all of these bands have, holding less oxygen than ever. The whole album’s like that, in fact—inorganic and vacuum-sealed, not only contradicting the ‘realness’ The Lilacs want to extol, but simply sounding awful. The piano-ballad Too Much Of A Good Thing proves more difficult to screw up, though the medium has a significant effect on that. It’s still polished and smoothened to no end, while also ill-fitting to Ollie Anglesea’s voice and its aversion to subtlety. He’s one of those who sings like he’s constantly got a mouth full of jam, ‘cause how else are you supposed to make it irrefutable that you’re a Northern indie frontman? Additionally, there’s such an anti-charisma as he grins his way through these songs, not to where he’s dislikable, but devoid of magnetic traits.
If you wanted to call The Lilacs a band of NPCs after all of that, it’d be hard to argue. There’s no tangible personality here, even in its most granular form, nor is there the possibility that such a thing could even come about. In a field of indie music that’s only enjoyable if you listen to literally nothing else, it speaks volumes that The Lilacs fail even by those standards. At least there’s a bit of pizzazz and energy to Red Rum Club or The K’s, instead of this cut-and-dry pop-rock that thinks a smile and a cheeky-chappy conduct is all it needs. When The Lilacs have precisely nothing else, it’s enough to turn Keeping Up With The Joneses into one of the most void albums of 2026.
For fans of: anyone associated with This Feeling
‘Keeping Up With The Joneses’ by The Lilacs is out now on Scruff Of The Neck.
Words by Luke Nuttall
