★★★★☆
This 18-year-old from Hertfordshire is the very definition of what under-25s call woke (and what everyone else calls socially aware). Declan McKenna appeared on the radar with Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent competition in 2015. With his youth, looks and way with a cheery melody, he might have become another Ed Sheeran-like boy-next-door type — had his debut single, Brazil, not addressed the corruption surrounding the 2014 football World Cup.
His album continues in a similar vein, with snappy guitar pop on subjects generally avoided by boys with floppy fringes and vociferous female fan bases. The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home, written after the Paris Bataclan attacks and in the run-up to Brexit, underlines the powerlessness of teenagers in the face of adult-created chaos; the frothy electro of Isombard belies a message on standing up to xenophobia.
McKenna’s appeal is in never sounding hectoring or preachy but simply putting subjects you imagine he and his friends argue about to a good tune. Combined with an easy charisma, it marks out this wide-awake teenager as one to watch. (Columbia)