Take That – This Life review: Middle aged and middle of the road, writes ADRIAN THRILLS

TAKE THAT: This Life (EMI)   

Verdict: Late-career renaissance

Rating:

HII MADNESS: Theatre Of The Absurd Presents C’Est La Vie (BMG) 

Verdict: Staging a comeback 

Rating:

MÅNESKIN: Rush! (Are UComing?) (Columbia) 

Verdict: Rapid progress

Rating:

As former pin-ups — now in 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 ways and enjoyed the subsequent lucrative reunion tour. Now a slimmed-down threesome — with just Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald remaining — they find themselves seeking a fresh start.

This Life is their first set of new songs since 2017’s Wonderland, a tired and predictable affair, and the trio are calling it the third chapter of a career that dates back to 1990, when they were created as a quintet modelled on American outfit New Kids On The Block.

Their first album, Take That & Party, was a dizzy mix of bubblegum pop and disco. Owen describes their latest incarnation as ‘a scruffy version of The Three Tenors’, although the delicate harmonies and strummed, soft-rock guitars of This Life place them closer to a homespun version of the Eagles, or folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash. They could have rebranded themselves Barlow, Owen & Donald.

Now a slimmed-down threesome — with just Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald remaining — they find themselves seeking a fresh start 

The 12 new songs lack the rogue element that court jester Robbie Williams might have brought to the table. (Robbie left Take That in 2014 — for the second time — along with Jason Orange.)

But the survivors have regrouped well. There’s nothing too challenging here, but Gary, Mark and Howard have subtly shifted the dial without losing their love of a memorable chorus.

A sense of renewal is emphasised by two new collaborators. Nashville-based Dave Cobb, who co-produced 2018’s A Star Is Born soundtrack and has worked with rock singer-songwriter Jason Isbell, nudges the band towards rustic Americana.

Another U.S. producer, Jennifer Decilveo, adds synths and a drum machine, taking up from where she left off on Owen’s 2022 solo album, Land Of Dreams.

A grown-up mood is apparent from the off. Windows tells of emerging into the light after ‘a year of madness’. Brand New Sun finds Owen extolling the importance of patience in keeping a long-term relationship alive.

Keep Your Head Up is all sad strings and plaintive piano, and Mind Full Of Madness opens with a driving, 16th-note guitar riff that recalls Stevie Nicks’s Edge Of Seventeen.

The songs sometimes slip into vague platitudes, but they address universal emotions with warmth and candour.

A grown-up mood is apparent from the off. Windows tells of emerging into the light after ‘a year of madness’. Brand New Sun finds Owen extolling the importance of patience in keeping a long-term relationship alive

Barlow wrote the title track, a jaunty piano piece with the feel of a 1970s middle-of-the-road pop single, after his son’s graduation.

One More Word finds Donald singing about raising his daughter. ‘You’re the story of my life,’ he concludes. It’s schmaltzy, but kind of sweet. Two of the best tracks arrive late on.

Time And Time Again features harmony vocals on a par with 2007’s Rule The World. Where We Are is an optimistic appraisal of ‘that road ahead’.

Once Britain’s biggest pop act, Take That are growing old tunefully.

What Take That were to the 1990s, Madness were to the 1980s: a great singles band.

There are traces of the group’s nutty-boy pedigree on their 13th album, but fans expecting re-runs of ska-pop hits in the style of Baggy Trousers and House Of Fun should be wary. Theatre Of The Absurd… is a concept LP about the parlous state of the post-pandemic world.

Sequenced as a three-act Music Hall production — with a prologue, epilogue and spoken-word interludes by actor Martin Freeman — it emphasises the darker streak that has always lurked beneath that zany facade.

Haunting images of London’s West End in lockdown dominate the Eleanor Rigby-like Theatre Of The Absurd, with singer Suggs promising to host ‘the last and only performance of the cruellest cabaret’.

Lead singer Graham McPherson, known by his stage name Suggs, performs all the Hits with his Band Madness at Tramlines Festival in Sheffield

Matters are equally bleak on the other title track, 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 about the perils of Artificial Intelligence on Run For Your Life.

In vintage Madness fashion, the latter combines fatalistic lyrics with a strident, funky tune. The sense of dread is tempered with a conviction that the show must go on.

If I Go Mad is a love letter from Suggs to his wife, singer Bette Bright. In My Street, a sister song to 1982’s Our House, is a throwback to the days when a Madness song could cheer up the nation.

With this release vying to be their first-ever chart-topping studio album today, they remain national treasures.

‘We’re not punk, we’re not pop, we’re just music freaks,’ sang Italian rockers Maneskin ten months ago on their third album, Rush!

Surprise winners of Eurovision in 2021, the quartet have developed into an arena-filling live act with energy to burn.

An extended version of Rush!, with five new songs, rubber-stamps their progress.

Two of the new tracks, all sung in English, are ballads. Trastevere is set in Rome, the band’s hometown.

Valentine is ludicrously over the top. ‘I cover myself in tattoos of us, and dream of the day we embrace and combust,’ sings Damiano David.

The other additions are upbeat, ranging from thundering heavy metal to arty, danceable indie-pop.

Take That start a UK tour at Utilita Arena, Sheffield, on April 13, 2024 (gigsandtours.com). Madness start their tour next 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)

Rating:

Born in Chile but raised in New Jersey, Jonathan Tetelman is a tenor to watch, with a most beautiful, cultured voice.

A year 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 but raised in New Jersey, Jonathan Tetelman is a tenor to watch, with a most beautiful, cultured voice 

It is a little early for the centenary of the composer’s death but very welcome, as Tetelman is better in tune than some of his big rivals and he has a feeling for Puccini’s brand of phrasing.

The expected hit numbers — ‘Che gelida manina’, ‘Nessun dorma’, ‘E lucevan le stelle’ — are here but some selections are a bit unusual, such as the scene from Madama Butterfly Act 3.

La Boheme gets three excerpts, including the love duet with the excellent Federica Lombardi and the farewell quartet from Act 3; and altogether Tetelman is supported by six other singers.

Music from Le Villi, Manon Lescaut and Il Tabarro is included; Carlo Rizzi conducts the Prague Philharmonia idiomatically but the climax of ‘Nessun dorma’ sounds a tad strange.

VENITE, GAUDETE! Choral Music For Christmas (Naxos 8.574575)

Rating:

The Christmas music on this CD is beautifully sung but you may have encountered it before, as it was issued on another label in 2011.

David Hill, one of our top choirmasters, conducts just 16 professional singers in the IKON ensemble which is convened for special projects.

The Christmas music on this CD is beautifully sung but you may have encountered it before, as it was issued on another label in 2011 

The 2009 recordings from St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood, still sound good and my sole reservation is that many of the arrangements are very tricksy and unnecessarily complicated.

The simplicity of the Coventry Carol virtually disappears under the weight of the harmonies heaped upon it by Richard Allain, and some of the modern composers are guilty of the same.

I do enjoy Kenneth Leighton’s G.K. Chestertoon setting and there are classics from Whitacre, Holst, Warlock, Joubert and Howells; the title track by Adrian Peacock was new in 2009.

TULLY POTTER

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