Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 05/08/2012 at 3:53 PM Reviews

The Popdust Files: adam lambert, track-by-track reviews, trespassing

Adam Lambert’s second album Trespassing has leaked about a week ahead of schedule (and is now also streaming on his website), and while the true Glamberts out there might be holding off to spend their hard-earned money on it at Best Buy and iTunes…well, we didn’t really feel like waiting. As we tend to do with these things, we’ll be reviewing this album one track at a time, 12 tracks in all, starting with the opening title track and going up to closer “Runnin.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP0fGUSKHHk

Said title-track opener starts with the sound that pretty much all albums should start with—”We Will Rock You”-style stomping and clapping. Adam casts himself as a rebel outsider from the very get: “Well, I was walking for some time / When I came across this sign / Saying who are you and where are you from / We don’t like when visitors come.” (Signs, signs, everywhere a sign.) From there, the song kicks into one of the tightest funk/disco tracks produced by Pharrell (!) since the halcyon days of “Rock Your Body” and “Hello Good,” with the guitar and bass both imitating Lambert’s vocal line, creating this compact sound that makes for a brilliantly propulsive opener. Adam’s more than up to the challenge of riding the beat, wailing “I don’t need no GPS to show me where to go!!!” and promising “No trespassers / Well, my ass / Wait till they get a load of me.”

It’s the kind of glammed-out, us vs. them disco stomper that we’re always wanting to hear from Adam, and it’s a hell of a way to get the album going. (The “Another One Bites the Dust“-ish break is a nice touch, too.) Where you been hiding, Pharrell?

POPDUST SAYS:
[starreview tpl=16]