Last week, indie rock trio The Wombats released their fifth album, Fix Yourself, Not the World – offering a blend of danceable beats, atmospheric mellowness and tongue-in-cheek lyrics that cements their position as one of the most successful bands to come out of the UK indie scene.
Preceding the release were three tracks that set our expectations high for the rest of the album – ‘Method to the Madness’, ‘Ready for the High’ and ‘If You Ever Leave I’m Coming With You’. Whilst ‘Method to the Madness’ is fuelled by melancholy piano chords and a traipsing drum machine beat, the frenetic ‘Ready for the High’ and electro-pop number ‘If You Ever Leave I’m Coming With You’ both offer the infectiously catchy sound that we’ve come to associate with the band.
Though that’s not to say that there are no surprises and the album introduces a more mature sound that incorporates pop, funk electronica and even R&B – it’s impressive to see the band jump from confident pop tracks such as ‘Wildfire’ and ‘Flip Me Upside Down’ to the downtempo ‘Everything I Love Is Going To Die’ and even the psychedelic masterpiece that is ‘Fix Yourself, then the World’.
Frontman Matthew Edward Murphy (aka Murph) is an incredibly underrated lyricist, blessed with the talent of pairing self-deprecating and even downright depressing lyrics with cheerful melodies and the lyrics attached to Fix Yourself, Not the World are some of his best yet. The upbeat ‘Worry’, for example takes us on a journey of Murphy’s anxiety and life as an over-thinker: “bang my head on a wall that I built in the future, i let the smallest of things ruin the day”.
Fix Yourself, Not the World has just scored the band their first number one album – with an arena tour and several festival headline sets on the horizon, they continue to dominate the scene and are not going anywhere yet!
