TAKE THAT: This Life (EMI)
Verdict: Late-career renaissance
HII MADNESS: Theatre Of The Absurd Presents C’Est La Vie (BMG)
Verdict: Staging a comeback
MÅNESKIN: Rush! (Are UComing?) (Columbia)
Verdict: Rapid progress
As former pin-ups — now of their 50s — Take That are in uncharted territory for a British boy band.
They have weathered the years of teenage fan hysteria, survived a parting of the methods and loved the next profitable reunion tour. Now a slimmed-down threesome — with simply Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald remaining — they discover themselves searching for a recent begin.
This Life is their first set of recent songs since 2017’s Wonderland, a drained and predictable affair, and the trio are calling it the third chapter of a profession that dates again to 1990, once they have been created as a quintet modelled on American outfit New Kids On The Block.
Their first album, Take That & Party, was a dizzy mixture of bubblegum pop and disco. Owen describes their newest incarnation as ‘a scruffy model of The Three Tenors’, though the fragile harmonies and strummed, soft-rock guitars of This Life place them nearer to a homespun model of the Eagles, or folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash. They may have rebranded themselves Barlow, Owen & Donald.
Now a slimmed-down threesome — with simply Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald remaining — they discover themselves searching for a recent begin
The 12 new songs lack the rogue ingredient that court docket jester Robbie Williams may need delivered to the desk. (Robbie left Take That in 2014 — for the second time — together with Jason Orange.)
But the survivors have regrouped effectively. There’s nothing too difficult right here, however Gary, Mark and Howard have subtly shifted the dial with out shedding their love of a memorable refrain.
A way of renewal is emphasised by two new collaborators. Nashville-based Dave Cobb, who co-produced 2018’s A Star Is Born soundtrack and has labored with rock singer-songwriter Jason Isbell, nudges the band in direction of rustic Americana.
Another U.S. producer, Jennifer Decilveo, provides synths and a drum machine, taking on from the place she left off on Owen’s 2022 solo album, Land Of Dreams.
A grown-up temper is clear from the off. Windows tells of rising into the sunshine after ‘a yr of insanity’. Brand New Sun finds Owen extolling the significance of persistence in protecting a long-term relationship alive.
Keep Your Head Up is all unhappy strings and plaintive piano, and Mind Full Of Madness opens with a driving, Sixteenth-note guitar riff that remembers Stevie Nicks’s Edge Of Seventeen.
The songs generally slip into obscure platitudes, however they tackle common feelings with heat and candour.
A grown-up temper is clear from the off. Windows tells of rising into the sunshine after ‘a yr of insanity’. Brand New Sun finds Owen extolling the significance of persistence in protecting a long-term relationship alive
Barlow wrote the title observe, a jaunty piano piece with the texture of a Nineteen Seventies middle-of-the-road pop single, after his son’s commencement.
One More Word finds Donald singing about elevating his daughter. ‘You’re the story of my life,’ he concludes. It’s schmaltzy, however type of candy. Two of one of the best tracks arrive late on.
Time And Time Again options concord vocals on a par with 2007’s Rule The World. Where We Are is an optimistic appraisal of ‘that highway forward’.
Once Britain’s greatest pop act, Take That are rising previous tunefully.
What Take That have been to the Nineties, Madness have been to the Eighties: a terrific singles band.
There are traces of the group’s nutty-boy pedigree on their thirteenth album, however followers anticipating re-runs of ska-pop hits within the type of Baggy Trousers and House Of Fun must be cautious. Theatre Of The Absurd… is an idea LP concerning the parlous state of the post-pandemic world.
Sequenced as a three-act Music Hall manufacturing — with a prologue, epilogue and spoken-word interludes by actor Martin Freeman — it emphasises the darker streak that has at all times lurked beneath that zany facade.
Haunting photographs of London’s West End in lockdown dominate the Eleanor Rigby-like Theatre Of The Absurd, with singer Suggs promising to host ‘the final and solely efficiency of the cruellest cabaret’.
Lead singer Graham McPherson, recognized by his stage title Suggs, performs all of the Hits together with his Band Madness at Tramlines Festival in Sheffield
Matters are equally bleak on the opposite title observe, C’Est La Vie, which conjures up apocalyptic visions of a ‘tyrannical heaven’.
There’s wry lockdown scepticism on Set Me Free (Let Me Be) and a warning concerning the perils of Artificial Intelligence on Run For Your Life.
In classic Madness trend, the latter combines fatalistic lyrics with a strident, funky tune. The sense of dread is tempered with a conviction that the present should go on.
If I Go Mad is a love letter from Suggs to his spouse, singer Bette Bright. In My Street, a sister music to 1982’s Our House, is a throwback to the times when a Madness music may cheer up the nation.
With this launch vying to be their first-ever chart-topping studio album at this time, they continue to be nationwide treasures.
‘We’re not punk, we’re not pop, we’re simply music freaks,’ sang Italian rockers Maneskin ten months in the past on their third album, Rush!
Surprise winners of Eurovision in 2021, the quartet have developed into an arena-filling stay act with vitality to burn.
An prolonged model of Rush!, with 5 new songs, rubber-stamps their progress.
Two of the brand new tracks, all sung in English, are ballads. Trastevere is about in Rome, the band’s hometown.
Valentine is ludicrously excessive. ‘I cowl myself in tattoos of us, and dream of the day we embrace and combust,’ sings Damiano David.
The different additions are upbeat, starting from thundering heavy metallic to arty, danceable indie-pop.
Take That begin a UK tour at Utilita Arena, Sheffield, on April 13, 2024 (gigsandtours.com). Madness begin their tour subsequent Thursday at P&J Live, Aberdeen (ticketmaster.co.uk). Maneskin play AO Arena, Manchester, on December 19 (livenation.co.uk).
JONATHAN TETELMAN: The Great Puccini (DG 486 4683)
Born in Chile however raised in New Jersey, Jonathan Tetelman is a tenor to look at, with a most lovely, cultured voice.
A yr after his much-praised first DG recital of arias recorded in Gran Canaria, he has been to Prague to set down this freshly-vocalised album of Giacomo Puccini’s best-known tenor scenes.
Born in Chile however raised in New Jersey, Jonathan Tetelman is a tenor to look at, with a most lovely, cultured voice
It is somewhat early for the centenary of the composer’s loss of life however very welcome, as Tetelman is best in tune than a few of his massive rivals and he has a sense for Puccini’s model of phrasing.
The anticipated hit numbers — ‘Che gelida manina’, ‘Nessun dorma’, ‘E lucevan le stelle’ — are right here however some picks are a bit uncommon, such because the scene from Madama Butterfly Act 3.
La Boheme will get three excerpts, together with the love duet with the wonderful Federica Lombardi and the farewell quartet from Act 3; and altogether Tetelman is supported by six different singers.
Music from Le Villi, Manon Lescaut and Il Tabarro is included; Carlo Rizzi conducts the Prague Philharmonia idiomatically however the climax of ‘Nessun dorma’ sounds a tad unusual.
VENITE, GAUDETE! Choral Music For Christmas (Naxos 8.574575)
The Christmas music on this CD is superbly sung however you’ll have encountered it earlier than, because it was issued on one other label in 2011.
David Hill, one in every of our high choirmasters, conducts simply 16 skilled singers within the IKON ensemble which is convened for particular initiatives.
The Christmas music on this CD is superbly sung however you’ll have encountered it earlier than, because it was issued on one other label in 2011
The 2009 recordings from St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood, nonetheless sound good and my sole reservation is that lots of the preparations are very tricksy and unnecessarily sophisticated.
The simplicity of the Coventry Carol nearly disappears beneath the load of the harmonies heaped upon it by Richard Allain, and a few of the trendy composers are responsible of the identical.
I do take pleasure in Kenneth Leighton’s G.Ok. Chestertoon setting and there are classics from Whitacre, Holst, Warlock, Joubert and Howells; the title observe by Adrian Peacock was new in 2009.
TULLY POTTER