Indeed, “Wonderful Life” finds the Northern Ireland trio meeting the moment, embracing the tension that they’ve pondered from their homes over the last few years. “We’re starting to get into the summer, it’s a ‘here we go’ kind of thing.” “It feels perfect, it sounds like us, it is us,” Baird says of the song.

Though bassist Kevin Baird and guitarist Sam Halliday claim that a bulk of Keep On Smiling was crafted pre-pandemic in the months following False Alarm, “Wonderful Life” was one of the more recent tracks they worked on, and serves well as the album’s thesis and entry point. And in true Two Door Cinema Club fashion, the band has channeled these ideas through a bright, neon-colored glow, full of glitzy synths, classic melodies, and some nods to their raucous and bustling debut, Tourist History.Īlong with announcing Keep On Smiling, Two Door Cinema Club have shared the album’s lead single, “Wonderful Life,” which represents the LP’s contrasting ideas perfectly. The dichotomy of this idea - optimism versus pessimism, acknowledging change versus ignoring it - is at the core of Keep On Smiling. But it also suggests that that anguish is nearly impossible to avoid, that the heaviness of our current reality is too hard to ignore, and to keep on smiling is an ironic way of acknowledging everyone’s pessimism. Keep On Smiling as a title implies a couple different things: for one, it’s a steadfast image of positivity and optimism, a plea to keep spirits bright in the face of anguish. Today (June 16th), they’ve announced their forthcoming fifth studio album, set for release on September 2nd of this year. When Two Door Cinema Club returned back in 2019 with False Alarm, there was a delightful tone of being “seriously unserious.” But now, that lighthearted message means something a bit different after two years of a pandemic and a lengthy period of being stuck at home, playful and positive art helped lessen the weight of our global situation, and as most of us exit lockdown, there’s a definable sense of tension around re-entering the world and starting over.įor Two Door Cinema Club, they just want you to keep calm and smile on.

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