''Fix Yourself, Not the World'' is the fifth studio album by English

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

band

the Wombats The Wombats are an English indie rock band formed in Liverpool in 2003, consisting of Matthew Murphy (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards), Tord Øverland Knudsen (bass, backing vocals, keyboards), and Dan Haggis (drums, backing vocals, keyboards). ...

, released on 14 January 2022. It was preceded by the singles "Method to the Madness", "If You Ever Leave, I'm Coming with You", "Ready for the High", and "Everything I Love Is Going to Die". Music videos were also released for the tracks "This Car Drives All By Itself" and "Worry". The album was supported by a tour throughout America, Europe, and Australia during 2022. The album debuted atop the

UK Albums The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official ...

and UK Independent Albums charts with 13,812 units in its first week.

Background and recording

The album began when all members were together in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

in 2019 and wrote several songs. It was then recorded remotely during several

COVID-19 lockdowns During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of Non-pharmaceutical intervention (epidemiology), non-pharmaceutical interventions, particularly lockdowns (encompassing stay-at-home orders, curfews, quarantines, and similar socie ...

beginning in 2020, with each band member in a different location:

Matthew Murphy Matthew Edward Murphy (born 23 July 1984) is an English musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of The Wombats, which he co-founded in 2003. He began a solo career under the name ...

in Los Angeles, bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen in

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

and drummer Dan Haggis in London. They made a plan each day before separately recording their parts and sending them on to the producers. Haggis said that the band "explored new genres and pushed ourselves further than ever musically" on the album.

Cover art

The cover art for the album and its singles was created by German–American pixel art collective eBoy. Kai Vermehr of eBoy said that he "collected loose ideas" from Murphy and the other band members, and the artwork came together without having "a detailed plan" but through "more of a discovery process".

Critical reception

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

, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 72, based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 6.8 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.

Track listing

Personnel

Greg Calbi Gregory Calbi (born April 3, 1949) is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, New Jersey. Biography Greg Calbi was born on April 3, 1949, in Yonkers, New York, and raised in Bayside, Queens, New York. He graduated in 1966 from Bishop ...

– mastering *

Steve Fallone Steve Fallone is a New York-based mastering engineer. He won at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards The 64th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 3, 2022. It recognized the best recordings, compo ...

– mastering *

Mike Crossey Mike Crossey (born 1979) is a Northern Irish record producer, songwriter, and mixing engineer. He produced the debut single by Arctic Monkeys, collaborating with them over two albums. He is known for his ongoing relationship with The 1975, in a ...

– mixing *

Gabe Simon Kopecky (formerly the Kopecky Family Band) is an American indie-rock band formed in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2007. The band consists of Kelsey Kopecky (vocals, keyboards, and bass), Gabe Simon (vocals, guitar, and horns), Steven Holmes (guitar, ...

–

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

* Jack Duxbury – engineering *

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 Direc ...

– engineering * Jonas Jalhay – engineering * Mark Crew – engineering *

Paul Meany Paul Meany (born July 2, 1976) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music director, and record producer. He is best known for co-producing and collaborating with much of Twenty One Pilots' work since 2017. He has also done p ...

– engineering *

The Wombats The Wombats are an English indie rock band formed in Liverpool in 2003, consisting of Matthew Murphy (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards), Tord Øverland Knudsen (bass, backing vocals, keyboards), and Dan Haggis (drums, backing vocals, keyboards). ...

– engineering * Kai Vermehr – cover illustration * Steffen Sauerteig – cover illustration * Svend Smital – cover illustration * Antony Kitson – graphic design * Stephen Sesso – assistance

Charts

References

{{The Wombats 2022 albums Albums produced by Jacknife Lee AWAL albums The Wombats albums