Passenger–Wicked Man’s Rest

The pop album that doesn’t sound quite sound like a pop album

1. Wicked Man’s Rest

2. Night Vision Binoculars

3. Things You’ve Never Done

4. Girl I Once Knew

5. Do What You Like

6. Needle In the Dark

7. Four Horses

8. You’re On My Mind

9. For You

10. Walk In the Rain

11. Table for One

Passenger’s freshman release, Wicked Man’s Rest, blew me away.

I stumbled across the band on thesixtyone.com and immediately I hit my itunes and bought the album. Very very rarely do I enjoy every track an artist puts out but every song appealed to me on some level.

“Wicked Man’s Rest”, the title track, is the first introduction to Passenger’s sound. If I had to categorize them, I guess I would say pop/alternative but those words feel so limiting. They encompass both genres but are defined by neither. At first listen, the songs seem to be relatively straightforward. But the more I listened to the album, the more complex and layered their sound becomes. “Do What You Like” has a frantic, aggressively up-tempo acoustic guitar. “Night Vision Binoculars” is incredibly sunny and almost simplistically upbeat. You think, “Oh, I’ve heard songs like this before”. But then you hear the hilariously creepy lyrics about a man essentially stalking his coworker. Almost all their songs have some sort of unexpected twist: either between the lyrics and the sound or in the sound itself. It is mildly inconsistent but overall a pretty amazing and attractive first attempt for Passenger.

Give them a shot if you are in the mood for some interesting, thoughtful pop/alt music.

http://www.passengerofficial.com

–Just “K“