Amy MacDonald - The Human Demands

 

In 2007 Amy MacDonald burst onto the scene with her debut album "This is the Life".  This was one of the first albums I ever reviewed.    Back then I used to always tip up and coming bands and artists for success.  But often I predicted wrong with bands either splitting up or just disappearing from the limelight.  Amy though is one of the exceptions to that.  In my "This is the life" Review it headlined "This will certainly be the life for Amy...........after releasing this cracker!".  So for a change I actually got it right as 13 years later she is still going strong with her just releasing her 5th album "The Human Demands". From my own perspective I thought her first two albums were exceptional, while albums 3 and 4 were still good but didn't quite have the anthems that her first 2 albums had.

So how does her 5th album "The Human Demands" shape up?  Well when first single "The Hudson" came out prior to the release of the album I had mixed feelings about the track.  If you take the track with out the lyrics I thought it was excellent.  But looking at the lyrics it did get the feeling that Amy has used some of these before.  Now it may not seem like a big deal to have reused certain words.  But I feel they are so prominent in her early songs that it makes it feel less imaginative putting them in this album.  I'm talking about words like "Shining bright" which appeared on an old song of hers "Don't tell me that its over" and also appears in the opening line of "Wish for something more".  Also in this album she uses the word "spark" quite a few times which of course appeared on an earlier album.  May not seem like a big deal but it did annoy me slightly when listening some of the tracks as there are plenty of words out there to use. :-)

Because of this and the second track which was released as a single "Crazy Shade of Blue" was quite a slow track and I wasn't really feeling it.  Therefore I did have low expectations for the album.  However I was pleasantly surprised by the album.  There is some great song writing on here and some really upbeat songs which see Amy produce the kind of music we know she is capable of making and really what has been lacking in the last few albums she has made up for here.  Examples include "The Human Demands" title track, "Bridges" and "We could be so much more"

Although "Crazy Shade of Blue" was slightly disappointing I think more because I think she is at her best with the up tempo tracks.  There is a track on here which is an exception to that and that is "Young Fire, old flame" which is a slower acoustic track which Amy has absolutely nailed and really works well.  I feel another track in particular though stands out as something which sounds a bit different for Amy and that is "Strong again"  as I think its a glockenspiel or something like that which makes an appearance throughout this track.  Its another chirpy number and probably my favourite currently on the album.

Overall I think this is a great album.  Although I had my slight annoyances with the lyrics you cannot fault the actual tunes and in general the lyrics on the whole are very good.  And lets face it when you've got someone with a unique a voice as Amy's who is as good at this at delivering the lyrics vocally;  it just shows right there why she has been successful as she has and will continue as long as she wants.