If you’re a first time listener, a few things most likely won’t surprise you.
1. These boys are UK-made and thriving
2. These boys are huge on the radio waves
3. These boys have seen serious family heartache 
With Athlete’s first hit album, Vehicles and Animals, listeners heard more electric-tinged motion, and it included a quirky ditty, “El Salvador” that popped up on The Last Kiss soundtrack and gained quite a fan base. Fast-forward to year 2009, and Athlete is now releasing record number four, and has been mood music to “One Tree Hill” four times.
So what can we amateur Americans liken Athlete to? Well, critics seem to agree that Coldplay’s mellow swells and slows are here, and the sweethearts of popular indie success, Snow Patrol, would dig this. Lead vocalist Joel Pott has a voice made for proclaiming tender life lessons with backup from echo-ey (not acoustic or biting) guitars, symphonic synth, and moments when the arena-jammed fans are wailing “ohhh wooahhh ohh” right along with him.
Black Swan seems to have a steady plot; the whole arrangement was named appropriately for life and its cataclysmic turns. “We read an article about Nassim Nicholas Taleb and his book The Black Swan,” as Pott puts it. “He was saying that our lives are made up of a handful of significant shocks, good or bad. That’s exactly how our journey has been over the last six years. We’ve had lots of unexpected highs and lows, as a band and as people.”
That being said, there are definite winners in the mix, and then moments where it just seems too FM-ready. For instance, “The Getaway” is the first single and massive fan favorite in the U.S., and one listen will bring you to the conclusion that yeah, it’s perfectly produced and breathtakingly well balanced. The lyrics, starting with, “I never really know who you are/you could be a ghost for all I know” let you know that this is the track you want motivating your all-too confusing and bipolar love life. However, the cheesy clincher explodes later in the song, “please break my heart/just so I can feel.” Come on…cue the montage.
But not all tracks sound like a band-backed Matt Nathanson, Howie Day, Travis, Damien Rice, enter-any-other-young-adult-nighttime-soap-indie-band-here. “Love Come Rescue” really is beautiful, on any facet. From the finger plucking of the acoustic, to the resonating crooning of Pott’s voice, and even the tender lyrics that aren’t made for crowd pleasing; these are the lyrics that seem to be talking only to the subject, whoever that is. This should have been the single, in all its honesty and secrecy. But it’s a short track, at under three minutes. And so I elect another, “Superhuman Touch” to grace the radio for a while. It’s fun, and still has moments that, although not too innovative, seem unique.
The album is good enough to pass with a thumbs-up, but it should come with a warning to indie-absorbed snobs like this writer—overplay is an absolute possibility, if not guarantee. Come next spring, this sucker will be in ALL the bars.
Track List:
01. Superhuman Touch
02. The Gateway
03. Black Swan Song
04. Don’t Hold Your Breath
05. Love Come Rescue
06. Light The Way
07. The Unknown
08. Awkward Goodbye
09. Magical Mistakes
10. Rubik’s Cube
11. Black Swan
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