Album DescriptionAvailable in:
"Wildness" is the seventh studio album by Northern Irish-Scottish rock band Snow Patrol. The album was released on 25 May 2018 through Polydor Records. It is their first album with Johnny McDaid as a full member of the band, after his involvement as a guest musician and songwriter on Fallen Empires and participation in its tour.
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 66, based on 5 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
User Album Review
Once again teaming up with their old cohort Jacknife Lee, the 10-track LP does a seamless job of sating fans’ thirst for fresh stadium-sized anthems (‘Wild Horses’), while also skilfully illustrating that you really can teach some old dogs new tricks (Lightbody’s new-found falsetto on ‘A Youth Written In Fire,’ for example, has a previously untapped R&B vibe). Living up to the album’s title, Wildness also sees the quintet take a few risks musically and tinker with their hugely successful formula, label bosses be damned.
‘Dark Switch’ is an infectious oddity that has the sexiness of Lucy Pearl’s ‘Don’t Mess With My Man,’ the gothic glamour of Fleetwood Mac’s Tango In The Night and the the twisted pop of Kate Bush in its DNA. The folksy ‘Don’t Give In’ also pushes boundaries and debuts a new, raspy vocal style from Lightbody, which gives goosebumps you could hang a hat off, as he tellingly warns “Don’t fall in love with the way things were/ It’ll fuck up your mind”. The bombastic ‘Life On Earth’, meanwhile, adds some gravitas to proceedings.
There’s plenty of Wildness in the lyrics too, which revolve around the twin themes of self-discovery and acceptance. Lightbody bravely lays himself bare throughout, and writes about subjects such as personal rebirth (‘Heal Me’) and his father’s battle with dementia (‘Soon’), delivering his most intimate collection of songs yet.
While Wildness isn’t perfect (the album is a little front-loaded), it is a stylish, sometimes surprising comeback that will firmly re-establish Snow Patrol in the charts and hearts of the world. Welcome back, boys.
reviewed by Edwin McFee for hotpress.com.
External Album Reviews
None...
User Comments