Third time’s a charm for the Script with their new album #3

 The Script have had so many hits on the radio that it seems like they’ve been around for decades, but the reality is that they’ve only been at it for about four years.

Their self-titled album spawned one hit after another -- "We Cry," "Breakeven" and "The Man Who Can't Be Moved.”

They sold millions of records, played stadium shows with music heroes U2, Take That and Paul McCartney, and penned the monster hit “Live Like We’re Dying” for American Idol winner Kris Allen.

They defied expectations by avoiding the dreaded sophomore slump with last year’s Science and Faith, a brilliant album that showed huge growth in song writing quality.

More radio hits ensued, including “For the First Time,” a melancholy tune about tough times that was the right song at the right time as the globe tried to shake off a recession. 

With their third album, #3, the band deepens their trademark soul-pop sound and are poised for another round of world domination.

#3 opens with “Good Ol’ Days,” the antithesis of the tough times that were documented in “For the First Time.” “We’ll remember these nights when we’re old and grey ‘cos in the future, these will be the good ol’ days,” sings a cocksure Danny O’Donoghue over a playful beat. 

Danny’s voice has a lonesomeness to it that enables him to sell a song of desire like “Six Degrees of Separation” to the teenage girls and their moms at the same time, a key ingredient to their success.

“Lost my heart and I hope to die/seeing that sunlight hit your eyes/have the kind of time you dream about/if God came down he could take me now,” he sings on “Millionaires,” his falsetto peppered with ache and desire.

His sharp phrasing comes in handy on tracks like “If You Could See Me Now,” where he takes on rapping -- always risky for a white boy from Dublin, yet he pulls it off both admirably and masterfully. 

Like U2, the Script formed organically when three old friends from Dublin – O'Donoghue, guitarist Mark Sheehan, his best mate since the age of 13, and drummer Glen Power formed a band. Time has made them more seamless than ever; you can hear it in the hairpin grooves throughout the disc. 

They are currently rocketing up the charts yet again with the spirited “Hall of Fame,” a hip-hop lite duet with will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas. O’Donoghue met will.i.am at the judge’s table on the U.K. version of the popular singing competition The Voice.

"He's a producer and a songwriter and that's what we are," says O'Donoghue in an interview with Billboard.

"And I think we connected on that level first, more so than anything else. It was never one-upmanship, and on the show he wasn't saying things just to diss me. It was all for the better of music, and the same vice versa."

With his moonlighting gig on The Voice and his high profile breakup with a fashion model, O’Donoghue is regular tabloid fodder in the U.K. He has grown accustomed to playing the big gigs and will continue to do so as the band embarks on an arena headlining tour to support #3.

This has been a long time coming for Danny. I remember interviewing him over the years as a member of the defunct Dublin boy band My Town and as a behind the scenes producer and songwriter selling songs and sounds to the music industry.

He has brought his band through clubs and theaters, winning fans one at a time, and he deserves every morsel of limelight and success that he has now. Fair play to the fella, this couldn’t be happening to a nicer guy! 

#3 rocks harder, keeping the band’s rock credentials intact with soaring guitars on songs like “Kaleidoscope” while maintaining a radio-friendly vibe.

The deluxe version of #3 on iTunes also includes a trio of songs from their back catalogue that was recorded in a triumphant homecoming at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium.

“Falling to Pieces” and “For the First Time” become Super Bowl-sized sing-alongs in this open-aired environment, proving what longtime fans of the band have known all along -- the Script can hold their own as the biggest thing to come out of Dublin since U2. 

The band begins their headline tour on the West Coast this week before coming to the East Coast in November with a show at the Susquehanna Bank Arts Center in Camden, New Jersey on November 10

Source: Irish Central