Review of: Young as the Morning Old as the Sea by Passenger

Let's face it. I'll always be slightly biased when talking about Passenger. Mainly because I can think of very few artists who were responsible for evolving my music tastes quite like Passenger. For those of you who don't know, Passenger is a five piece fronted by Mike Rosenberg. Rosenberg has released music under this name since his first album Wicked Man's Rest, which to this day I consider his best work until the band broke up in 2009 and Rosenberg took the name on for himself where he continued to release music. He made his break into the mainstream with the 2012 smash hit Let Her Go which topped charts across Europe and the critically acclaimed album, All The Little Lights. An album that I continue to love and adore to this day; if you haven't heard it, go listen to it, it's amazing. Since the release of that album, Passenger has had a fan base that Mike had never had before. He released his next full-length album in 2014 titled Whispers, another great album, and then the sequel Whispers II in 2015. However much I did feel like Passenger's material has been going down hill a bit, especially with the release of Whispers II, I was still excited when he announced his 2016 album, Young as the Morning Old as the Sea. So, how was it? Did it live up to my through the roof expectations?

Well, this album certainly doesn't have the immediate hit song on it like All The Little Lights did, and it's nowhere near as good as Wicked Man's Rest which holds on to the title of best Passenger album for now, but there is still a warm feel of indie folk-pop that feels like it's coming from a good place. This has always been Passenger's main selling point for me. His honest vocal tone kind of makes you at least sympathise with him, at least to some extent. His vocals (and the backing vocalists particularly) continue to sound great on this new album, but I can't help but think that something deeper than that is missing from this album. The quality seems to have dipped from stunning, to fine enough, occasionally forgettable, but always pleasant folk-pop. It's difficult to pin down quite why this has happened, but I can take a bit of a guess. First of all, there is a certain lack of music variation throughout this album. I understand that Passenger is a folk-pop band, so obviously there is folk-pop on this album, but there is so little change in the instrumentation from song to song that it can get frustrating. In other words, a lot of these songs sound very similar. But I suppose the sound is welcoming and matched with Mike's vocals lines that sit at very similar ranges throughout this album, it does work. Mike's voice sounds like it was made perfectly for this brand of folk flavoured pop music. It's quite amazing really. It's great to hear an album this refreshing every once in a while.

Passenger has always been an incredible storyteller for me like on my favourite song from All The Little Lights, The Wrong Direction, where he tells the story of someone who is finding it difficult to find a woman with detail and interesting metaphors, and while there is some of that on this album, like on Beautiful Birds which features British musician Birdy. The song tells the story of two lovers, or birds as they are described as in the song, with eventually the female in the relationship asking too much of the male, and the relationship falling apart. I like the detail here. This brings up a whole other point to do with the lyrics and themes on this album, because if I had to give one word to describe Young as the Morning Old as the Sea by Passenger, it would be, reflection. Take When We Were Young for instance. A song where Passenger discusses what it was like being young, and how time has flown by. A message that seems tinged with sadness which I really appreciate. It shines the song in a significantly more interesting light.

Sometimes the stories on this album can get vague and repetitive. While When We Were Young has detail and complexity behind its story, songs like the opener Everything have stories behind them that don't connect quite as much. On Everything, the message is 'if you've got love, you've got everything' to quote the song directly. However much the simple framing does compliment that message, the lack of any real content beyond it kind of sets it back for me. Anywhere is another example. It opens with a pretty promising guitar melody, that might have worked if Passenger didn't just spend the entire song discussing that he'll always be with his girl no matter what. The potential is present in these melodies, but the themes don't always provide a solid enough baseline for the lyrical content in these songs to keep the interesting for the length of the songs.

I like the soothing vibe Somebody's Love has got going on, and while I will always prefer the single version of this track - mainly because it's almost four minutes long, and the album version is nearly five and a half - it still stands out as one of the better songs on this album. I love how the lyrics intertwine with each other and how they all seem to link and connect on the second verse. It continues the pleasant feel that this album has going on.

However, I could probably do without the dry, shallow echo of the guitar on Young as the Morning Old as the Sea, but once they fade into something more acoustic later on in the track they become more interesting. The song does drag a bit, though. Beautiful Birds probably has the most enjoyable instrumentation on this album by playing to a more delicate feel pretty amazingly. The framing is spot on here. I would have loved it if Birdy was allowed to be more expressive on this track, and not just seemingly being here for the sake of framing the song as a duet. Maybe if she had a verse explaining the situation from here opinion.

Points must be given for the way that the end of Beautiful Birds fades into The Long Road. It is a transition that I love. The Long Road is a song about travel and has a feeling of moving on and new beginnings over the shimmering instrumentation. While this song is about moving on away from what you know, Home runs that idea even further as it discusses the safety of home and how Mike doesn't have the comfort of a place like that. It is slightly irritating that the song goes on for six minutes, and half of that time is spent repeating the same verse four times over, but that verse is so well crafted talking about the difficulty of not having a home. A great song, but not the beat on the album.

Fools Gold is, without a doubt, the best song here, and it is almost entirely to do with the complex framing. I may have misinterpreted here, but the song seems to be about wanting more out of a relationship partner and comparing all the things Passenger has asked out of his partner that wasn't going to enhance the relationship in any way to fools gold. I find that metaphor so touching.

In conclusion, I'm struggling to come up with an awful lot of criticism for this album. My biggest criticism of this album is that I would have appreciated a bit more string texture in the mix that made some of his earlier work particularly interesting musically. Even the more boring songs on this album like the song If I Go that just doesn't end up doing a lot for me still have the captivating vocals and backing vocals to give it that soothing feel that fills up the entirety of this album. Overall, it's 4 / 5 and a firm recommendation. If you're a fan of Passenger and haven't heard this yet, it's essential. If not, I'd still recommend this album as warm background music for working to, or even just to relax to. I am happy to say, Passenger has once again delivered.

Favourite songs: Fools Gold

Least Favourite Songs: If I Go

Overall Rating: 4 / 5

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