Oh Wonder
Ultralife
Release Date: Jul 14, 2017
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock
Record label: Island
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Album Review: Ultralife by Oh Wonder
Acceptable, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 6/10
Two years on, the follow up's lead single and title track "Ultralife" serves as a manifesto for what the band are now trying to achieve: the same friendly pop with a new technicolour intensity. Maximalism looks good on them. The chorus is a joyous mass of jig-like strings and percussion. Second single "Lifetimes" is about climate change, and if the Paris Agreement ever required a theme tune, it could do a lot worse than this slick pop cut.
Based on rating 5/10
The duo of singer/musician Josephine Vander Gucht and producer/musician Anthony West formed in 2014 around a song-a-month songwriting-recording challenge with a one-year commitment. Calling themselves Oh Wonder and uploading their efforts to music-sharing site SoundcCloud as they went, before their 12 months were up they'd gone viral with millions of streams, sold out shows in advance of touring, and signed a record deal with Republic Records. With a debut consisting mostly of those homemade keyboard/drum machine songs, their follow-up, Ultralife, is their first to be conceived as an album, or even as a legit group.
'Ultralife'
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