Album Review: The Getaway Plan - Dark Horses

Having endured an explosive introductory album, a band break-up, band reunion, multiple member changes and then leaving a management/label — all in a reasonably short space of time — you’d be forgiven for presuming The Getaway Plan may have entered the recording of their third album with a hazardous attitude. It’s perhaps telling then that they’ve managed to create a record that shows both the best and worst of the band.

Dark Horses has grand aspirations, setting its sights on anthemic trailblazers and a radio rock target with shimmering melodic moments and heavily used layered vocals. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work as many of the tracks choke on their own ambitions. Last Words, written in an honest and earnest manner that should pull emotionally, tries so hard that it feels as contrived as a insurance sync track. Castles In The Air is a car crash of an attempt at a Muse tribute, smashing together an awkwardly placed digitised vocal and an overwhelming and heavy synth rock, the track placed early in the record.

The record is hardly without its merits however. Tracks like Battleships, The Means and Dark Horses are a brilliant and powerful combination of a simple, driving piano line with a blasting chorus and whipping drum beats that allows vocalist Matthew Wright the platform to pack a mighty vocal punch that sticks with you well after the record finishes. It simply would have played much better had these moments not been so few and far between.