If You Wait - London Grammar
Fitting that I should be up against the deadline with an album title here suggesting one more day before the next album might have been best. If you wait, indeed.
The first song that I enjoyed was "Stay Awake". The vocals really complimented the music on that track perfectly. The guitar on that, not overpowering, but in step with the vocals really highlight what this band can be. The lyrics on that were very pronounced too: "I don't have a soul like you, the only one I have is the one I stole - from - you."
This too reminded me of Florence + the Machine, but this one has taken a bit longer to appreciate than from a band I already enjoy. Not sure because I liked the music enough in places, but in some of the songs, things may have started slower than needed.
The atmospheric musical sounds that pick up in songs like "Wasting My Young Years", a very personal and well delivered song. "Strong" was another song I see was popular as a single, and the only one here that charted in the US on Adult Alternative. I clearly missed it at the time, as well as this band, in hearing them for the first time here. "Metal & Dust" like many other tracks, started slow, and had the catchiest of refrains with the "We argue, we don't fight" until it reached the vocal ending.
It's a good thing I wasn't guessing who nominated this album, because I would not have gotten this, not at all.
@southamptonblue mentioned in the write up on how London Grammar took Kavinsky's original version of "Nightcall" and improved upon it. And I'd certainly agree - because after hearing those originals "vocals", there was no place to go but up! ;-) Seriously, the remake on this album, improved upon the original, and vocally was day to the original's "night" version. The track was one that seemed to work best to me where the slow build up to a musical and vocal synergy worked better than others that didn't get there.
I too agree with
@journolud as the bonus tracks helped the album ending, with "High Life" and "Maybe" actually being better than some of the songs prior that originally concluded it. The title track was clearly another personal song with lyrics spelling out "'cause I can't give you anything".
Fresh off the "blandness" and "sameness" tags of our last nomination, I however found myself getting lost in some of the other songs here in this case. I'm not going lower than a 5 as was a common theme from the last album's criticism, but it won't be much higher either.
6/10 sounds about right for how this landed overall, with a shared appreciation of the vocals and the personal lyrics within being the most pronounced.
