Authors of hits like Youngblood, She Looks So Perfect and Want You Back, the australian band 5 Seconds of Summer has just came out with their fourth album and, let’s just say: it didn’t disappoint. The release is called CALM, which is an acronym for the first letters to the names of each member of the band: Calum, Ashton, Luke and Michael. The name fits perfectly because CALM is about making music that is more personal to them, since they wrote basically all the songs as a group, staying true to who they are as a band, but without neglecting their evolution.
And what an evolution. This album really is a journey, you can clearly see that the order of the songs has meaning and each song has its own vibe and puts you in a different frame of mind. Their ability to create ambiance is amazing. It opens up with the song Red Desert, which feels like horse riding in the desert, and moves on from song to song, through romantic ballads and upbeat sounds, until it closes off with High, which is basically as bittersweet as you can get.
This album also has a lot of influence from other bands and artists, some hints reminded me of The Doors, Charlie Puth (who even helped with the writing of Easier), Post Malone and even Led Zeppelin and U2 — a fun fact is that The Edge, U2’s guitarist actually plays on the track Best Years. They also worked with writers and producers they had already worked with in the past — like Matt Pauling, Ali Tamposi and Rami Yacoub —, and that had its own impact as well. All of them together were able to create an album that mixes Pop, Rock and R&B, and even a hint of punk. And they still made every single song radio friendly.
From the melodies, the harmonies, to the chord progressions, the lyrics and, especially, the producing, CALM feels very much like 5SOS. You can clearly relate it to Youngblood, even though they’ve definitely evolved in the producing sense throughout their albums and started producing for other bands. CALM is nothing like anything they have ever written, it’s a must hear, and a real step up for this band.
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The article above was edited by Amanda Oestreich.
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