Three years on from topping the UK album charts with his second albumReady For The Weekend, Calvin Harris is back with his third instalment 18 Months.
Featuring hit singles such as number one single "Sweet Nothing", the MTV Video Music Award winning 'Best Video', "We Found Love", and the number two singles "Bounce", "Let's Go" and "We'll Be Coming Back", Calvin fans everywhere have a right to be excited for this release.
Calvin admitted himself that he feels too old now to sing about getting all the girls (he's only twenty eight), and this album reflects his growth as an artist since he exploded onto the music scene in 2008, fast-forward six years and this is indisputably his finest. The album features other artists such as, Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine, Ne-Yo, Kelis, Rihanna, Ellie Goulding, Dizzee Rascal, Tinie Tempah and Example!
This is not a case of the singles are great the rest of the album lags; each song has its merits. I definitely recommend checking out "Drinking From the Bottle", which will be familiar to those who went to Radio 1's big weekend at Hackney, and "Thinking About You" featuring Ayah Mara, which could be singles in their own right. While the singles picked for release definitely have a distinctive style that has been very popular in the charts (arguably his more commercial stuff), "Iron" is a bit more risqué with a sub-focus/knife party dub step sound, offering something unexpected and less of the synth-pop nu-disco we have become accustomed to from Harris.
To date this has been the easiest pre-order I have ever made. Personally I would love to see him collaborate with Florence Welch for a whole album after the success of "Spectrum" and "Sweet Nothing". Maybe with "18 Months", Harris has finally put together an album to crack the American market once and for all and gain the worldwide recognition arguably Britain's best electro house composer deserves. I give this album a nine out of ten attributed to the fact I can put it on
and leave it playing for the full fifty minutes without touching my iPod again.
