Speaking from experience after seeing Ed Sheeran on his X Tour in 2015, I quickly understood the reasons why fans were so obsessed with him. His voice was so soft and pure and oddly enough, it sounded like the recordings that were on all of his albums. It is very strange how that works out nowadays but truth be told, it was great. Because of this, when I heard that he was coming out with new music I knew that I would be counting down the days.

Two new songs were released on Jan. 6: “Castle On The Hill” and “Shape of You” off of his new album Divide.

I had heard the beginning of “Shape of You” several times on Twitter so when I heard the full song, I was not completely surprised with how it sounded. Although now listening to it I’ve heard it so many times that it’s been over played. It is still a quality song with interesting lyrics including “The club isn’t the best place to find a lover, so the bar is where I go.” Almost ironic mentioning both the club and bar with similar definitions however, that’s beside the point. Overall, the song was good but out of the two it was not my favorite.

The official music video was also just released of “Shape of You” and to be quite honest it made absolutely no sense to me. What is going on in the video does not match the lyrics whatsoever. It starts out with a girl boxer and Sheeran in a boxing ring preparing for a fight. Although this is a cute scene, it does not make sense with the lyrics that are playing at that moment, as well as a fight between a sumo wrestler and Sheeran himself. The extreme contrast between the video and the lyrics results in me not liking the video.

“Castle on The Hill” however, is the epitome of a quality song. It starts off with a fast guitar and then the heavenly sounds of Sheeran’s voice begin with the lyrics of going home and past memories. The way that his voice flows with the guitar sounds as pure as when your teachers tells the class that there is no homework for the night. The overall song brings me great happiness and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to listen to his new music.

The official music for “Castle on the Hill” was also released and truly makes my heart smile. It starts off as Sheeran a young boy and goes through flashbacks that he had of the good memories that he had as teen. I appreciate this video as a whole more than the video of “Shape of You” because to me I believe that it truly matches the lyrics and is not just random boxing scenes.

I would give the two songs a  7/10 but would still recommend.

The rest of the album Divide will release on March 3 and  I am intrigued to see what the rest of the album holds.

The album is also available to purchase on iTunes.