Many bands may struggle with irrelevancy if they dared to leave a four year gap between albums, most would probably be back in their day jobs – but not The Wombats, who this week are releasing the long awaited and much anticipated follow up to 2011’s platinum-selling This Modern Glitch.
[include_post id=”443130″]Glitterbug is a somewhat darker and moodier album than The Wombats’ previous works, and is a lot more synth heavy than their older records. Telling the story of a fictitious relationship with a mystery woman in Los Angeles, the tracks explore themes of envy, big city life, and the struggle and pretence that comes with a city like LA. The way the story unfolds through the eleven songs and two bonus tracks is clever and witty, in the tongue-in-cheek way The Wombats have come to be known for.
After touring the world solidly for 18 months, the trio from Liverpool finally unpacked their suitcases, regrouped, and spent a massive year and a half putting together over two dozen songs, constantly working, refining, and retuning what would eventually become Glitterbug.
And whilst taking that long to put together an album might be slower than industry standards, the time and care they put into each track is classic Wombats, in quality and production. Assisted by producer Mark Crew (who helped chart-smashers Bastille in their rise to stardom), there are more than a couple of tracks that are destined to be on repeat, and some solid single material on offer.
Instead of the usual hitting the studio together to smash out their tracks, Glitterbug came together in a unique way: Lead singer Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy set up base away from home and in LA, whilst drummer Daniel Haggis and guitarman Tord Øverland Knudsen remained in Liverpool, and the tracks flew back and forth between the US and the UK as they worked and tweaked the album to perfection.
LA’s inescapable influence comes through the album less-than-subtly, and as the story of a romance unfolds, you have to wonder where real-life ends and the fiction starts.
Years in the making, ‘Your Body is a Weapon,’ the first single for Glitterbug came out in a free download back in 2013, ahead of the 2015 release for the rest of the album, and takes heavy influence from the glitz and weirdness that is Hollywood.
[include_post id=”437668″]There are some seriously dark tracks in the album, with ‘Greek Tragedy’ taking the crown for the darkest piece of work The Wombats have put out to date. Telling a tale of obsession and stalking, the music video shows a seriously grizzly story ultimately ending in the violent deaths of each of the members of the band.
It’s not all macabre and squalor though. ‘The English Summer’ is a track that’s quintessential Wombats, bright and heavier on the guitar, than the usual synthy sounds the rest of Glitterbug has to offer.
And as for quintessential Wombats, ‘This is not a Party’, nestled in the middle of the album is straight up earwig material – this is a track that’ll be stuck in your head for days.
As they get closer to a decade of making music together, The Wombats could probably afford to branch out and try a few different sounds. The average music listener has seriously different taste in 2015 compared to 2011 when their last album dropped, and even though they’ve put the work in to ride their own coattails for a while, that grace won’t last forever. Overall, the album is solid, and The Wombats can sit pretty with their market share of the music scene for the next season.
Glitterbug is out via Warner April 10th.
