Sheeran finds domestic bliss; Plush’s debut is searing hot
Huge things have happened to Ed Sheeran since his last solo album — marriage, loss, fatherhood. They’re all on the new collection “Equals,” an album that sweetly sounds like a man who now has all he needs.
“I have grown up/ I am a father now/ Everything has changed/ But I am still the same somehow,” Sheeran sings on the revealing opening song, “Tides.” Don’t believe it: He has changed.
Gone is the heartbreak and bitterness that gave a sly edge to songs on previous albums. Gone is much of the insecurity that made Sheeran so relatable. That guy you imagined down at the pub with his mates enjoying a pint and a packet of crisps is now home, shutting out the world.
The bulk of “Equals” are love songs to his wife, Cherry Seaborn, like the unabashedly romantic “First Times,” when he sings: “The greatest thing that I have achieved/ Is four little words, down on one knee.”
The album is almost like a scrapbook looking back at their private moments: sleeping on the beach, red wine shared in Brooklyn, the time the car stalled in the snow. For Sheeran, his business — even playing in front of 80,000 people — doesn’t have the same thrill.
Sheeran veers into sappy with “The Joker and the Queen,” “Overpass Graffiti” and “Love in Slow Motion,” destined for adult contemporary charts. If you liked his previous hit “Perfect,” this is more of the same. There are thick storms of violins and cellos throughout.
Their child — daughter Lyra, born in August 2020 — inspired the lullaby
“Sandman,” where dad sings, “Loving you is easy, but life will not always be.” The song “Visiting Hours” mourns a friend’s passing, just as “Supermarket Flowers” on his last album “Divide” was a lovely farewell to a grandparent.
But “Equals” doesn’t stray far from home and the woman he adores. “The world hurts less when I’m by your side,” he tells her on “Collide.” On “Be Right Now,” he sings: “There’s nothing but the space we’re in, the hurry and the noise shut out.”
So let’s tiptoe away and leave him to his domestic bliss. — Mark Kennedy, Associated Press
Plush: I no longer fear for the future of rock ’n’ roll. It is in the capable hands of the four young ladies of Plush, perhaps the heaviest all-female rock group ever to put pick to string, and whose debut album could be the best album of 2021.
Imagine Pink singing for Metallica, and that just scratches the surface of the Plush sound.
You probably don’t know the name lead singer Moriah Formica yet — but you will, and soon. It will be in the same sentence with some of the greatest female vocalists — make that vocalists, period — of all time, including Ann Wilson of Heart and Pat
Benatar, whose songs Formica used to cover as a teenager in rock clubs with only an acoustic guitar. The arena has not been built with a roof high enough to contain her soaring, multioctave vocals.
The next song Formica writes about a happy romantic relationship will be the first: This disc is laden with pain-filled laments and rages, including the infectious first single, “Hate.”
There are songs about partners who abuse substances (“Sober”), cheat (“Why Do I Even Try”) and lie (“Don’t Say That.”)
But almost all of them end in messages of female empowerment in which the protagonist realizes she’s in a bad situation, cuts her losses and leaves to look for a better life (“Found a Way,” “Better
Off Alone” and “Walk Away.”)
Instrumentally, Formica, who also plays rhythm guitar; bassist Ashley Suppa; lead guitarist Bella Perron; and drummer Brooke Colucci, all of them under the age of 21, play like accomplished veterans who hit as hard as anyone out there.
The kids are way better than all right: They could be the future of rock.