After a break of 18 months, Sam Smith came back with a bang and released his second album, The Thrill of It All, to the world on November 3rd, 2017. It didn’t take long for the album to blow up, with his emotional and dramatic single, “Too Good at Goodbyes.” With this song, he scored himself a spot at 5 on the top 100 in just the first week of its release.

It’s a reoccurring theme that in a lot of Smith’s songs he incorporates biblical references and allusions. Smith also, like most artists, writes and expresses his sorrows from heartbreak and relationships. The soul singer blends these two themes together in many of his works in order to create a powerful message to his audience. For example, in one of his songs Smith writes from his own perspective, a gay man, and how he believes god understands his sexuality. The name of the song is HIM but another spelling of the same pronunciation is hymn which is a religiously weighted word which means a song or poem to praise god. The double meaning of the title just further explains the feeling and meaning of not only Smith’s emotions but what he wants to convey and share with his audience to create a significant message that sticks with people.

It seems that with this new album Smith has began experimenting with different sounds, in order to explore new ideas. For example in the song “Say It First” the background singers’ voices begin to be distorted. Similarly in “One Last Song” the background singers have an interesting sound to them. The song’s background singers have a 50s vibe to them, and in multiple songs, he has a choir in the background. It’s easy to tell that Smith isn’t set on a particular sound and is open to change in order to create good music people will like.

For Autumn Hynes (11) the new sound enticed her the first time she heard it, happened to be Smith’s song Too Good at Goodbyes and now the tune is her favorite, “I love the sound; it’s so emotional but upbeat at the same time. It really resonated with me, and I listen to it at least 10 times a day now, said Hynes.

The Thrill of It All is an album of heartbreak, sadness, and passion. It is not hard to tell from just listening to a few of Smith’s songs that this album is one of the best to come out of this year. Smith kicks off on his world tour to expose the album next year and it goes through 2019. I think it is an underexageration to say that people are excited about the concert. It should be one for the books. It seems that Sam’s hard work has really paid off: people love his music, he is very successful, and he influences people’s lives, and we already can’t wait for the next one.