TOM ODELL WORKS THE CROWD

The second-album campaign for Columbia/RCA-signed singer/songwriter Tom Odell kicked off Monday with an intriguing video revealing a change in direction. Already an iTunes U.K. bestselling preorder, Wrong Crowd drops on 6/10, and is said to include plenty of added rock & roll.

Odell’s million-selling debut, Long Way Down, hit #1 in the U.K. in June 2013, after he’d had won the BRITs Critics’ Choice gong. His cover of the John Lennon classic “Real Love” soundtracked the 2014 John Lewis Christmas advert, but the star has been somewhat silent since then.

The newly released title track “Wrong Crowd” is previewed in the promo video below; it shows the soft-spoken piano player transition to bona fide rock & roll troubadour. You can also hear a brief section of an unreleased song from the album titled "Constellations."

The new record, said to be big, dramatic and based on a world "with a heightened sense of reality," was co-produced by Odell and Jimm Abbiss, and is being helmed at Sony U.K. by A&R Manager George Tyekiff and Marketing Manager Bec Adams. Sam Eldridge of UROK is Odell’s manager.

Prior to album release date, Odell will play a series of intimate gigs across Europe throughout April, including a date at London’s Islington Assembly Hall (800 cap.) on 4/20, followed by the US in May, where he'll play New York’s Mercury Lounge on 5/4 and L.A.’s Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on 5/6.

Will his new style hit the right notes? Stay tuned.