In 2017, fresh off the release of his debut album What Do You Think About the Car?, Declan McKenna dropped a track that sounded like it belonged on a summer playlist — but hit like an op-ed. “Isombard” is fast, bright, and deceptively sunny, but behind its snap and shimmer lies something sharper: a direct shot at media manipulation and misinformation.
Talking about Isombard, Declan doesn’t frame it as a protest anthem in the traditional sense. “It’s not about shouting someone down,” he says. “It’s about showing the cracks while you’re still smiling.”
And that’s exactly how the track works. Snappy guitar lines and slick rhythms give you something to move to, while the lyrics — sly, sarcastic, and unapologetically pointed — slide the real message in sideways.
Produced by James Ford, the track lives in that rare middle space — not fully pop, not fully rock, but floating confidently between. McKenna explains, “I didn’t want it to sound weighed down. It needed to keep that speed and lightness, even if what I was saying was heavy.”
Ford’s touch is all over the production: polished but still alive, tight without feeling compressed. Every beat lands where it should, every guitar hit has just enough bite, and there’s a subtle tension running underneath that keeps the song from ever feeling like just background noise.
Declan admits that the contrast between sound and subject was intentional. “You get more people listening if they don’t know they’re listening to a protest song,” he laughs. “By the time they realise, they’ve already played it five times.”
It’s that disguise — the “smile through the static” approach — that gives Isombard its staying power. You can hear it as a sharp commentary on the news cycle, or you can just let it soundtrack your afternoon. Either way, it works.
While Brazil introduced McKenna to a global audience and Make Me Your Queen showed his range, Isombard feels like the point where his voice — both literally and artistically — locked in. It’s quick, focused, and refuses to waste a second. No ballads. No drawn-out breakdowns. Just three minutes of motion with something pointed just under the surface.
“If a song has something to say, it doesn’t have to shout it,” McKenna says. “Sometimes the best way to get a point across is to make people dance first.”