Four years ago, Adele obliterated the idea of a “difficult second album” with ‘21’. Its long awaited follow up, ‘25’, has been on shelves less than a week and has in that time caused similar damage to a heap of sales records. With the hype machine in overdrive it’s time to take off the rose-tinted glasses and see what Adele truly has to offer on album three. The verdict is mixed.
As her album titles make clear, Adele is all about snapshotting periods in her life. Time and age are threads that run throughout ‘25’. The preoccupation is immediately apparent on the album’s album opener, Hello, on which she sings: “The both of us are running out of time.” The song also showcases her impressive vocal range and picks up where Someone Like You left off.
The theme is made that much more obvious on When We Were Young, when she declares: “I’m so mad I’m getting old it makes me reckless.” A co-write with Tobias Jessor Jr and arguably the best song on the album, it perfectly mixes a contemporary composition with elements of a classic ballad.
The lyrics are also much more poetic than what we might expect from Adele’s usual, candid style. “Let me photograph you in this light, in case it is the last time,” she sings.
When We Were Young, which sounds like the theme to a film that doesn’t yet exist, is one of the only moments on the album, though, where the beauty of the words is matched by the music. Much of the time we get one or the other, along with a bucketload of cliches.
Love In The Dark boasts a beautiful string accompaniment, but finds Adele singing about being “oceans apart”. On Million Years Ago she reminisces: “I miss it when life was a party to be thrown.” But the acoustic guitar that backs her amounts to little more than a rehash of every ‘60s Spanish-style ballad you’ve ever heard.
Cliches aside, there is no denying that, as a singer, Adele has evolved. She makes more use of her upper and lower registers, jumping with ease between the two on I Miss You and Send My Love (To Your New Lover), the latter of which brings a refreshing change of pace with its relaxed tone. It also shows that she does not always have to belt everything out to make an impact. She is also happy to have songs led by drums and guitar, instead of relying on her ‘21’ formula: piano and pipes.
The harsh reality, which she sings of on River Lea, is that Adele needs to “lighten up and learn how to be young”. Though heartbreak knows no age, hearing such mournful songs written by someone in their 20s doesn’t quite sit right, however beautifully delivered they are. In fact, it smacks of getting life advice from a younger sibling.
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