There’s always been a place in record-nerd world for bands whose publicity stills depict boys and girls picnicking beside sun-dappled rivers, or whose songs are typically about sweaters, boating, and turtles. Indeed, a blog entry on Allmusic last week entitled “Twee as Ducks: Indie Pop Summer Crushes 2008” rounded up this year’s crop of cutesy perennials.

Even though Omaha, Nebraska’s Tilly and the Wall didn’t make the Allmusic cut, you’d think it would have based on the band’s slightly precious premise alone. The three-girl, two-boy outfit didn’t bother with drums much on its first two records, instead miking up tap dancer Jamie Pressnall for the rhythm bed. Vocalists Neely Jenkins and Kianna Alarid eagerly clapped, stomped, and cheered alongside.

Tilly and the Wall’s third album, O, released last month on Conor Oberst’s Team Love label, plays down such tooth-decaying cutesiness with the addition of darker tones to the musical palette. There are drums on more than a few tracks, and some hair-raising bars of metal-machine skronk from guitarist-vocalist Derek Pressnall on album opener “Tall Tall Grass”. Oh, and there’s bile.

On the single “Pot Kettle Black”, Tilly’s school-yard politics turn vicious on a certain unnamed ho/tramp/slut, while the album-closing tap-stravaganza “Too Excited” says fuck you to any dickhead foolish enough to get in the way of Tilly and the Wall’s rah-rah soda-pop party. It’s not quite as twee as ducks, then.

Guitarist Derek Pressnall agrees. “That’s just where we are as a band,” he tells the Straight as he prepares to leave Omaha for a coming tour. “Those are the songs that are coming out of us right now. And ‘Too Excited’ and ‘Pot Kettle Black’ were both born of emotional situations.”

Pressnall feels that the simple fact of aging has broadened the band’s range on O, especially when the disc is compared to 2004’s Wild Like Children and 2006’s Bottoms of Barrels.

“I guess as an adult, you start to dwell on the less-magical things in life,” he offers, “and that definitely has something to do with our songs. I think also those songs are not necessarily negative. They’re positive in the sense that they look at those kind of feelings and say, ‘I’m smart enough to realize what this is.’ ”

O is also markedly different from past Tilly efforts thanks to a smoother integration of the band’s boisterous everything-including-the-kitchen-sink approach. “Chandelier Lake”, for example, sets Tilly’s attention-seizing melodies to melodica, toy trumpets, xylophones, fuzz-drenched guitar, grand piano flourishes from band member Nick White, and the ubiquitous tapping, stomping, and clapping. There’s a touch of melancholy too.

Pressnall thinks the track exemplifies the growth of the five-piece. “Spot on,” he says. “With Wild Like Children, it wasn’t even like we were a band. Artistically, it was just a collection of songs. Since Bottoms of Barrels, our songwriting, just technically, has gotten better.”

“ ‘Chandelier Lake’,” he concludes, “has the same kind of vibe as something we would have written for our first demo, [but] I think we’re even better at pleasing the song itself, and understanding what the song is, and making it the best it can possibly be.”

Tilly and the Wall plays Richard’s on Richards on Friday (July 4).