Gary Barlow has weathered his share of storms. Having emerged from the fallout of Take That’s initial disintegration, his reputation as a songwriter of note was cruelly snatched from his grasp by an underwhelming solo bow and the all-encompassing scope of Robbie Williams’ fame at the turn of the millennium.
Take That’s comeback and the accompanying ‘Beautiful World’ record not only re-established Barlow as a chart force, but reminded music fans that he is capable of penning quite a tune. Back For Good remains his benchmark moment, a song so brilliant that it has managed to escape its boyband birth, but unfortunately, nothing on ‘Since I Saw You Last’ comes close.
Arriving 14 years after his last solo full-length - ‘Twelve Months, Eleven Days’, which peaked at number 34 on the UK album chart - it’s destined to make a far greater impact.
Now a fixture of primetime TV and a peculiarly British, unwitting sex symbol, Barlow has plenty of cultural capital to trade and may well have nailed his target market with 12 songs that are perfectly presentable and, over and above everything else, nice. The album opens with Requiem, a song co-written with Williams that adopts the sort of jaunty pop style that Paul McCartney employed with mixed results earlier this year on ‘New’.
It largely works for Barlow, who is able to address the more complicated aspects of his time out of the limelight, but what follows moves firmly away from its open, sardonic success and into more sterile surroundings.
Face To Face, a duet with Elton John that bounces along and has some fun with a Rick Astley-like composition, aside, Barlow is largely in ballad territory. A collaboration with Tim Rice-Oxley, of Keane, yields Jump, a song to be neatly filed alongside a lighter under the heading ‘inspirational’.
The album’s lead single, Let Me Go, and Small Town Girls borrow a bass drum and vocal style from Mumford and Sons to little effect, while God is a rumination that never gets below the surface. It does, though, possess a bassline that immediately sends Alannah Myles’ Black Velvet screaming out of the memory bank.
On the title track, Barlow lets his guard down just a little. Over stabs of acoustic guitar he revisits a few of the things that have shaped his career arc, acknowledging: “I’ve made my peace with what will happen, accepted I won’t be in fashion.” At this stage, he’s got nothing to prove to anyone and he knows it.
This record will tick plenty of boxes and doubtless shift a lot of units. It’s the hope that kills it - the hope that Barlow had a couple of classics up his sleeve to slam the door in the face of his doubters once and for all.
Tue December 31 2013 - LONDON Westminster Central Hall
Sat March 29 2014 - BELFAST Odyssey Arena
Mon March 31 2014 - DUBLIN The O2 - Dublin
Wed April 02 2014 - GLASGOW SSE Hydro
Thu April 03 2014 - LEEDS first direct Arena
Sat April 05 2014 - LONDON O2 Arena
Sun April 06 2014 - LONDON O2 Arena
Tue April 08 2014 - BIRMINGHAM LG Arena
Wed April 09 2014 - CARDIFF Motorpoint Arena
Fri April 11 2014 - LIVERPOOL Echo Arena
Sat April 12 2014 - NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Metro Radio Arena
Mon April 14 2014 - MANCHESTER Phones 4u Arena
Thu April 17 2014 - NOTTINGHAM Capital FM Arena
Sat April 19 2014 - BIRMINGHAM LG Arena
Sun April 20 2014 - SHEFFIELD Motorpoint Arena
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