Wildness (album)


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 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 in 2012, Gary Lightbody said that he had to overcome a bout of writer's block 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.

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

At review aggregator Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received a weighted average score of 64 based on 9 reviews. Pitchfork gave the album a 4.8 out of 10, calling it "Their most personal album 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 on sales of 39,118, less than 1,000 sales behind .

Track listing

Personnel

Snow Patrol
Additional personnel

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications