ROAM’s last album, 2017’s second outing Great Heights & Nosedives, was a solid pop-punk record. It spawned one of the Eastbourne quintet’s most heavily-streamed songs to date (the infectious Playing Fiction, currently at almost 6 million plays on Spotify), and established them as a main player in UK pop-punk. But what it lacked was a proper identity of its own, and some songs of the calibre that instantly make the listener know exactly who they’re listening to. Strip away the vocals of frontman Alex Costello and guitarist/singer Alex Adam, and good as the songs were, often things could have simply come from the general direction of Warped Tour, rather than knowingly the work of one band. Smile Wide changes that. With this third record, ROAM now have an identity to truly call their ...
