''Wildness'' is the seventh studio album by Northern Irish-Scottish rock band Snow Patrol. The album was released on 25 May 2018. It is their first album with

Johnny McDaid John McDaid (born 24 July 1976) is a singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer from Northern Ireland. He is a member of the band Snow Patrol and has written songs with other artists including Ed Sheeran, P!nk, and Robbie Williams. Early ...

as a full member of the band, after his involvement as a guest musician and songwriter on '' Fallen Empires'' and participation in its tour.

Background and development

In an interview with ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' in 2012,

Gary Lightbody Gareth John Lightbody (born 15 June 1976) is a Northern Irish singer, songwriter, and musician. He is best known as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the alternative rock band Snow Patrol. He has also founded the musical supergroups The ...

said that he had to overcome a bout of

writer's block Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Mike Rose found that this creative stall is not a result of commitment problems or th ...

and that the songs written for the new album were scrapped before being replaced by new "mind-boggling" material. The follow-up to 2011's '' Fallen Empires'' was initially due for release in 2016, and subsequently summer 2017. In late January 2018, the title and release date were officially announced. Every song in the album has its own music video except for "Heal Me".

Promotion

"Don't Give In" was released as the first single for ''Wildness'' on 21 March 2018. "Life on Earth" was released as the second single from the album on 12 April 2018. "What If This Is All the Love You Ever Get?" was released as the third single on 2 May 2018. "Empress" was released as the fourth single on 8 May 2018.

Critical reception

''Wildness'' received generally positive reviews from critics. On the

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website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the album has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 64 out of 100 based on 9 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". ''

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'' gave the album a score of 4.8 out of 10, calling it "their most personal album" and saying it "deals in matters of literal life and death".

Commercial performance

After an extremely close chart race, the album debuted at number two on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

on sales of 39,118, less than 1,000 sales behind '' The Greatest Showman: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack''.

Track listing

Personnel

Snow Patrol *

– lead vocals, guitar , additional programming , backing vocals * Nathan Connolly – guitar , backing vocals * Paul Wilson – bass *

Jonny Quinn Jonathan Graham Quinn (born 26 February 1972) is a Northern Irish musician, best known as the drummer for alternative rock band Snow Patrol, and was previously a member of bands like The Mighty Fall, The New Brontes and Disraeli Gears. As drumm ...

– drums *

– piano , backing vocals , keyboards , guitar , programming , orchestral arrangement Additional personnel *

Jacknife Lee Garret "Jacknife" Lee is an Irish music producer and mixer. He has worked with a variety of artists, including the Cars, U2, R.E.M., the Killers, Robbie Williams, Snow Patrol, Bloc Party, Two Door Cinema Club, AFI, the Hives, Weezer, One Dir ...

– guitar , keyboards , programming , backing vocals , strings arrangement , bass *

Davide Rossi Davide Rossi (born 7 August 1970) is an Italian violinist, string arranger, composer, conductor and a record producer, perhaps best known for having been the violinist, guitar and keytar-player for the British electronic music duo Goldfrapp f ...

– strings arrangement and strings quartet *Saran Davies – cello *Ben Hulme – French horn *Alexandra Ridout – trumpet , flugelhorn

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 2018 albums Snow Patrol albums Albums produced by Jacknife Lee