Adam Lambert's new album 'Trespassing': First listen

Published Jan 20 2012, 10:59 GMT  |  By Robert Copsey

Yesterday, your trusty Digital Spy music scribes were invited to listen to five songs from Adam Lambert's new album.

Why is this exciting? 1.) Because his debut LP - the frustratingly under-appreciated For Your Entertainment - showed heaps of potential, and 2.) We were played only what was completely finished (though we had previously been played one that's wasn't quite ready yet by accident), meaning we may have not even heard the best of it yet.

But make no mistake, what we did hear was, put simply, brilliant. Things we jotted down during the playback were "epic", "growly", "Jacko-esque", "filthy", "Queen", "devastating", "clapping" and "Sam Sparro".

The best of the tracks? At this stage we couldn't call it, but one song that a lot of people seem to be getting excited about is 'Cuckoo'. It's easy to see why; it's a towering electro-pop tune that despite being packed with all manner of production wizardry, remains an effortless number with a chorus whose hooks quickly dig in deep. It's co-penned by Bonnie McKee, who wrote the best songs on Teenage Dream and half of Femme Fatale, which says it all really.

We immediately noted down the band "Queen" when listening to the title track 'Trespassing'. Co-produced by Pharrell Williams, it combines funky bass with stadium-rousing rawk guitars and hand claps. "I was walking for some time when I came across this line," he belts with a growly vocal on the chorus. We're assuming this will be a single at some point, and if it's not, there will be trouble.

"Take me underground/ Deep below the street," Adam teases on 'Shady' over a raunchy bass guitar riff that sounds like it was recorded in a sex club - though one of those trendy Soho ones with over-sized chandeliers on the ceiling and Cristal Champagne on the menu as opposed to a dank and nasty one in Bradford. It's confident, in-yer-face and exactly why certain people (in America, mostly) sometimes get all in a tiz about him. It features Nile Rogers and Sam Sparro, but don't let that put you off because it's very good anyway.

We were then told that those were just some of the album's "light" tracks. We're still not quite sure exactly what that means, but there seems to be some sort of happy/light, sad/dark structure to the record. 'Outlaws of Love', we were told, is Adam's "most personal" song on the record, so we'll assume it's a dark one. Essentially, it's a massive ballad with big drums and delicate chimes that shows off his surprisingly wide vocal range.

Finally, we heard 'Broken English'. Once again it's co-written with Sam Sparro, and it's about struggling to communicate with your partner. "I can't say all the little things that I wanna tell you right now," he says, before we heard a bizarre but instantly addictive noise that we can only compare to a fire extinguisher being let off. We originally likened it to Britney's 'Inside Out', but on reflection it's a pretty loose comparison.

Surprisingly, the only track that feels out of place on Trespassing thus far is the lead single, 'Better Than I Know Myself'. It could be that there is more of that sound to come and we just haven't heard it yet, or it could end up being one of those songs that serves as a "bridge" between his old album and his new one. Either way, there are already four other possible singles to come from the record, so fingers crossed he gets a better swing at it in the UK this time out.

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