The title track announces itself with the weight of 90s grunge, all distorted guitars and apocalyptic urgency. It's a bold opener, immediately establishing that Downtown Patriots – essentially Watts in solitary creative labour – won't be offering easy listening. The climate anxiety that gives the album its name permeates these heavier moments, lending them a contemporary resonance even as the musical template harks back to Seattle's glory days. "Say Goodnight" continues this assault, confirming that Watts has absorbed his Muse and Radiohead lessons well, crafting songs that balance melodic ambition with satisfying heft.
"What Do You Care?" maintains the momentum before the album takes its first significant pivot with "I'm On My Way," where Steve Andrews' harmonica – the album's sole external contribution – provides a welcome textural shift. It's here that Watts begins to reveal the folk sensibilities that will increasingly dominate the album's second half. The harmonica cuts through Watts' meticulous production with organic spontaneity, a reminder of what collaborative chemistry might bring to his hermetic creative process.
"Lights On Lights Off" bridges the album's two personalities before "Smile" arrives as a genuine curveball – a ukulele interlude that tips its cap to the Beatles with disarming charm. At barely more than a passing thought, it's almost too slight to justify its place, yet it reveals Watts' willingness to follow his muse wherever it leads, commercial considerations be damned.
Then comes "Mother's Arms," the album's most recent single and perhaps its most accomplished track. Here, Watts strips away the distortion entirely, revealing a folksier sensibility that suggests he's been absorbing the lessons of Noah Kahan and Brandi Carlile. His voice finds a vulnerability that the rock tracks sometimes obscure beneath layers of production, and the song demonstrates that Watts' strengths may lie more in intimacy than bombast.
"Drunk" and "All My Life" continue this introspective trajectory, dealing with the romantic dissolution and heartache that complement the album's broader climate concerns. The sequencing feels deliberate – a gradual descent from apocalyptic fury to personal reckoning. By the time we reach "My Friend," the album's oldest composition dating back to 1998, we've travelled not just through Watts' sonic range but through nearly three decades of his creative development. That this early song sits comfortably alongside more recent material speaks to either Watts' consistent vision or his willingness to rework older material to fit the album's arc.
The production, handled by Watts himself before being mixed by Robert Sellens at Decoy Sound Studio and mastered by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road, displays both the advantages and limitations of the solo approach. The instrumentation across all ten tracks is consistently competent, occasionally inspired, but one occasionally craves the spontaneity that collaboration brings. Everything feels meticulously considered, perhaps over-considered given Watts' admission of repeatedly returning to tweak and adjust. The perfectionism yields clarity and precision across the album's economical 36-minute runtime, but sometimes at the expense of rawness.
The real question "World On Fire" poses is whether eclecticism constitutes identity or merely indecision. Watts clearly possesses the technical facility to execute multiple styles convincingly across these ten songs. His songwriting demonstrates genuine craft, even if the 28-year span means the material varies in maturity and sophistication. But does the refusal to be "pigeon-holed," as Watts puts it, create a distinctive voice or simply a scattered one?
The answer likely depends on your tolerance for artists who prioritize exploration over consolidation. "World On Fire" will frustrate listeners seeking a coherent sonic identity, but reward those willing to follow Watts through his various moods and modes. It's an album that reveals an artist still discovering himself, even after nearly three decades of songwriting. That journey – messy, ambitious, occasionally brilliant, occasionally overreaching – makes for a compelling if uneven listen. Downtown Patriots may not have found their definitive sound, but the search itself proves worthwhile.