New Street Adventure - What Kind of World?

What Kind of World? is New Street Adventure's third album for Acid Jazz, and their first new material in eight years, Nick Corbin still finding the bite underneath the maturity.

The London band built their reputation around 2010 on a sharp, guitar-driven take on soul, songs like Big AC and On Our Front Doorstep carrying a wry, occasionally furious eye on everyday life without ever losing sight of what made that life worth living in the first place. A tenth anniversary run of shows for their debut last year clearly reignited something, because this record arrives sounding energised rather than nostalgic, ten songs that trade some of the earlier grit for a wider emotional range without going soft.

The title track opens the album setting that broader tone immediately, more reflective than the band's earlier anthems but no less direct. Get You Back is the clearest pop moment here, a genuine hook delivered with real conviction, while What A Woman carries the record's sharpest edge, closer in spirit to the band's early gritty period than anything else on the record. The Next Chapter closes with exactly the kind of quiet confidence its title implies.

Corbin has always written about ordinary struggle without wallowing in it. Fifteen years in, that instinct hasn't dulled at all.