3in1! Pretty Shining People/ Hold My Girl/ Saviour- George Ezra Reviews

As you probably know, a lot is resting on this new album. The first album he put out was a true breakout, with two UK top ten hits and a hit in pretty much everywhere with a chart to track it.
The mediocre Don't Matter Know kicked off the single parade for this album last year, but didn't really make a dent anywhere. Paradise, an excellent pop anthem, George Ezra style, looked like it would do the same, but suddenly picked up steam and jumped to the top 20 in the UK in the past couple weeks. And now we have these three songs, all coming within two weeks of each other, so I decided to review them together.

Pretty Shining People is the kind of narrative song that has fallen out of fashion. It starts off slowly and still pretty catchy. The chorus is much faster and more anthemic, and brings in some drums. I think the basic acoustic guitar that ties it together is pretty good, and the extra little drum and keyboard bits work well with some electric guitar to strengthen the song and give it some punch. It's the kind of perfect anthem to be played in casual settings and for years after, clean but not boring, and mixed pretty well to boot.
Hold My Girl is a great, quite song, slowly uplifting, The guitar sets a backdrop for the keyboard that marks the mood of the piece, and some strings add some background. Around the bridge, the keyboard and other instruments reach a sort of Coldplay-like crescendo, and then let down to the satisfying rest of the song.
Saviour starts off pretty well, with a plaintive but not lonely electric guitar over a basic acoustic guitar, and drums giving it some anticipation. The guitar works well with that picture of the train, and then comes in with chord work to go to the almost to a dark note like Did You Hear The Rain? off his first album. The song does well throughout and with the surprise appearance by First Aid Kit, but the feature isn't really necessary and might sound a bit better but doesn't add a tremendous amount.

George Ezra is doing pretty well for himself. I predict Passion will hover in the lower end of the UK top ten and maybe the US top 40, and will help get him another top 5 album. The album should be pretty good musically, with my favorite song on it so far either Saviour or Paradise.