Spare bonus track “Nothing Left for You” summons the same genuine rage that made the pissy “I’ve Told You Now” a highlight on In the Lonely Hour.

Smith is an Amy Winehouse devotee-he was tweeting context-free lines from “Wake Up Alone” just a few weeks ago, so you know it’s real-and you get the feeling he’d love to make an album as frank and true as Back to Black.

And while “Midnight Train” sounds a little-OK, a lot-like a slow-motion version of Radiohead’s “Creep,” Smith ruins it by agonizing over leaving a relationship that isn’t working: “Am I a monster? What will your family think of me?” You wish the characters in these songs would show themselves a little more respect. One of two collaborations with the writer/producer Malay, “Say It First” deftly apes the moody, spacey sound of the xx but drags itself down with hopeless neediness. His specific brand of sadness is dark and sticky like molasses, and decent songs get snared. It’s a formula that remains commercially unimpeachable-lead single “ Too Good at Goodbyes” has lingered around the Billboard Top 10 since its release-but it can be exhausting, especially over the course of an entire album. His voice is an ocean liner that can turn on a dime his ballads are built around mournful piano melodies and fleshed out with choral arrangements he doles out feelings in bushels. His new album, The Thrill of It All, leans on the same strengths that made In the Lonely Hour one of this decade’s most successful debuts. alone-there’s no sense in reinventing the wheel. When you become this successful this fast-2014’s In the Lonely Hour has moved over four million units in the U.S.

In the lonely hour album release date