Single Review: Kodaline – ‘One Day’

One Day is the fourth single off the debut album, In A Perfect World, by Irish band Kodaline. Cenzo Townshend, the producer of this single, has worked with bands including U2 and Snow Patrol. Unfortunately, this shows on One Day.

I say unfortunately because despite the glistening guitars, nice little vocal bits (‘you and no-BO-dy else’) and a pleasant enough ‘hoo-hoo-hoo’ hook, this track sounds a lot like Chasing Cars without adding anything new. The tempo is the same. The understated feel is the same. There isn’t some spine-tingling chord change or melody that sticks. At least Birds of Tokyo’s rather pedestrian This Fire and Coldplay’s decent into weepy territory Fix You have some easily identifiable emotional highpoint, which One Day lacks. As a result, One Day is very middle-of-the-road and far too safe.

The track is a more appropriate soundtrack to the stirring of a cup of coffee in the morning than a euphoric arena/stadium sing-along with camera phones in the air. It’s not even a grower; it just…passes listeners by. Listeners can’t help but feel like they’re ‘wasting time’ on their own.

One day, Kodaline may come up with a single that is truly inspiring and befitting of venues such as the O2 in Dublin, where they will perform in March 2014.

Andrew Le