The Script - #3 Album Review

Fresh from his duties on The Voice, Danny O'Donoghue returns to his day job as lead man in Irish outfit The Script, a band who offer no prizes for guessing how many albums they have released with the title of this latest offering. A handful of UK shows coincide with this record, covering Glasgow, Manchester and London.

If the idea of a rock band turning to hip-hop makes you shuffle uncomfortably, then this record is not going to be for you - and possibly not for fans of the band. Perhaps it is from working with will.i.am, perhaps other means, but this is the album on which The Script channel their urban influences over strings and melodies produced for arenas. The Black Eyed Peas man appears on 'Hall Of Fame', a swaggering collaboration that aims to be 'Eye Of The Tiger' but is a kitten in comparison. 'Give The Love Around' is simply embarrassing, though improvement is found in 'Broken Arrow' and it must be highlighted that 'If You Could See Me Now' is not just a very good track, but genuinely emotive to boot. Of the songs that take The Script's more familiar direction, 'Kaleidoscope' is unashamedly aimed at stadium audiences with guitar parts reminiscent of U2, while 'Six Degrees Of Separation' is an admirably honest tale of break up that channels melancholy, anger, despair, false hope and then, finally, admittance. A bona fide hit for the mainstream, it is a shame that this quality is such a rarity on '#3', where the troughs outnumber the peaks.

Alex Lai