The Wombats are a 3-piece indie pop band from Liverpool, they released their first album 11 years ago now and since then have only released 4 albums including this new album. They always seem to take their time with their music, craft it, perfect it before they release it. And whilst they may not be everyone's cup of tea, they're mine. Their last album, Glitterbug, contained some fantastic tunes and I still revisit the album quite frequently to this very day. Leading up to Beautiful People... the singles were so on point.
'Lemon To A Knife Fight' perfectly whetted my appetite for their future music, it had a much more fulfilled sound and deeper bass than what I'd heard from them. But, also, deep down there was a lot of emotion in the track, almost as if it was based on something very personal. 'Turn' was the next single and by this point it was getting me giddy, it's one of the best written songs they've ever released, it all intertwines and mixes into a glorious indie pop banger.
Which leads me to the most blaring thing about this album, it's filled with all of the emotion of the previous 3 albums combined, with the band discussing love quite in-depth and a lot of its troubles. This is ever-present on the 3rd single 'Cheetah Tongue' which is quite a soft and tender song at it's very core with lead singer, Murph, vocals being at the best they've ever been.
The problem lies in the deeper cuts of the album, 'I Only Wear Black' is terribly boring and unimaginative which by the end has you begging for the skip button, but I stuck through for the purpose of this review! And from then the sonic tone of the album becomes less and less imaginative, as it trips over track after track. And they're not all bad, the album closer 'I Don't Know Why I Like You But I Do' which venture into ballad territory more often than you'd expect but it's executed surprisingly well. And 'Ice Cream' is a fun track despite being one of the worst lyrical cuts on any of their albums.
And how does this one stand against their other 3? Well, it's certainly the mos tdisappointing, which is a shame, but it's also one of the ones I had the most fun with. Those contrasting thoughts leave me with a dilemma everytime I listen to, because isn't fun ultimately what music is meant for? If it's a chore to listen to then why listen to it. SO it seems the only rating for it would be...
6/10