Of all the occasions that one could wear a suit for, a funeral is probably the least celebratory. Building up connotations of death with your band name is usually a trait reserved for murderous gothic metal.

Funeral Suits are no such thing. They’re not quite wedding material, but nothing to cough-up blood to. In fact, Lily of the Valley is a flower known to express sympathy when offered as a gift. We can expect the sophomore album to be entitled Rom Massey, or the likes.

The Dublin-lads’ debut effort is produced by Stephen Smith, who has previously worked with Blur and The Smiths. Admittedly, it took a while to get this album going, so great things were expected.

Funeral Suits deliver, but don’t exceed. Opener Mary’s Revenge, is full of atmospheric chants and bursts of bubbling guitar to liven things up. Brian James’ vocals aren’t particularly inspiring, but contradict the backing track—in a good way. There’s a great layering of different sounds, with frantic riffs carrying a calm outro vocal. We’re worked up into a dither—slowly—but the endgame is worth it. Add your own metaphors here.

Colour Fade is the first single we got from the Suits, a very good choice. The crawling dark-pop track’s sharp opening gives every indication of a less-than-offensive radio pleaser from the get-go. James’ vocal is in tip-top shape here, with an echoing bridge you can imagine that it is simply him shouting in a warehouse during a rainstorm. Resonating synths create an eerie sense of calm, like the tick of a clock counting down to a moment you’re dreading.

When that moment comes, it’s evil breathing signifying the opening of Health. Again, we have a sense of urgency while James calmly sings over rapturous drums that wouldn’t be out-of-place on a Kasabian track. There’s a dark ambience throughout, and adding in brief periods of silence seems a bit redundant and fails to increase the blow. But it’s not all doom and gloom.

Hands Down By Your Side’s howling sounds like it comes from the middle of the barren woods on a calm night. Just preventing it from becoming one of those tracks you can get lost in—is the repetitive chanting of the title, and it’s enough to cause you to freak out and leave before the crop-circles start appearing. But hey, what’s this? A perfectly timed breakdown removes any suspicion of cultish offerings, and leaves you wanting more of a track you nearly skipped.

If that wasn’t too intense, All Those Friendly People are waiting to cheer you up again. It’s a more laid back side of Funeral Suits, despite a few dodgy lyrics that only err on endearing. Almost a sun emerging from the dark clouds, ‘Oh ohs’ reminiscent of The Futureheads’ Hounds of Love cover turn this into a stomper, and one of the better tracks on Lily. It’s like the uptight, studious child playing in some mud—a welcome insight into their lighter side.

Florida maintains this, with a calypso opener taking us into trashy rock. Fuzzy 8-bit electro—a sound discreetly, and masterfully, sprinkled across the album—shows us that they’re happy to come out and play.

But they go back indoors on We Only Attack Ourselves, a slowed-down, lethargic attempt at melancholia. Strings lighten the intense vocal, but “I’m gonna go out and start a fight/ How come the sun don’t shine on me?” followed by “La la da da oh oh”—the sort you imagine you’d need to close your eyes for—is self-indulgent and not believable as emotive. Closer, I Still Love The High, is both atmospheric and droning, hitting your cochlea in all the wrong places. You can keep waiting for the pay-off, but it doesn’t come.

Cheer up lads, who died? Funeral Suits may have a sorrowful name, but their sound benefits from uplifting undertones. Doing the whole morose ‘thing’ causes them to blend into the landscape, another band that teenagers who wear black hoodies like to listen to. That’s cool and all, but Funeral Suits have so much more to give, and ‘Lily of the Valley’ is just a stepping stone to the big reveal.