Music Review: Coming Up for Air

I genuinely wanted to like this album. Kodaline is by all counts a great band—tight vocals, polished harmonies and on-point instrumentals. They blasted onto the international music scene in 2012 with their eponymous EP, which was met with rave reviews and a highly anticipated full-length album, In a Perfect World, which was released in 2013. They were second only to Haim for the BBC’s coveted Sound of 2013 and have drawn (warranted) comparisons to blockbuster bands like Coldplay, Oasis and Snow Patrol.

The band’s real strength, though, was what set them apart from these well known acts—namely, a folky sound that seeped through the anthemic heartbreak-rock and recalled their roots of a small, working-class Irish town. In the case of In a Perfect World, it was the small moments, like when their accents stood out or lead vocalist Stephen Garrigan’s voice cracked with emotion or acoustic guitar prevailed over production-heavy sound, that differentiated Kodaline and made them a band worth following.

Unfortunately, the humbler, more unique aspects of the band are unceremoniously swallowed up in Coming Up for Air. The quality of songwriting and playing is still top notch, for the quartet (Garrigan, Vinny May, Jason Boland and Mark Prendergast) demonstrates real prowess and attention to detail in their collective sound; yet, the band has strayed too far into hit-seeking territory. The two singles released in anticipation of the album, “Honest” and “Ready,” are the very definition of commercialized, love-torn dramatism, aimed for a heartsick teenage audience rather than the mature crowd the band initially drew. They seem unable to end a chorus without full-throated “whoah-oh”s that, while catchy and accessible, fail to be memorable and feel repetitively formulaic.

Lyrically, too, the band has lost the raw honesty that made tracks from their first album like “All I Want” and “Brand New Day” noteworthy and emotionally touching. Instead, we are met with lines that are sure to please a pre-teen audience but unlikely to satisfy more experienced ears: “I knew, the first day that I met you, I was never gonna let you, let you slip away” (“The One”).

The album’s third track, “Autopilot,” comes the closest to the sound that differentiates Kodaline from the British alt-rock bands into which they threaten to meld. It’s more restrained and refined, marked by unexpected melodic turns and unusual synth elements that set it apart from the been-there-done-that indie rock anthem. “Lost” is also touched with atmospheric, echoing power that succeeds in rescuing the record from sounding entirely market-driven. The same is true of “Better,” which instead of relying on production and volume, lets the charm of their early acoustic sound take over.

Kodaline may have taken a few more pages out of Coldplay’s book with Coming Up for Air than one might like, but they salvage their identity with a few standout tracks that separate them from this particular brand of indie rock. The album is far from groundbreaking, but it is nonetheless thoroughly enjoyable and uplifting for those days when you need to get over somebody by singing your heart out.