A stadium-ready Westlife return with another confection of airy, midtempo electro pop on new album Wild Dreams
Turn of the millennium Irish pop may be trying to force some sort of comeback with the recent escape (sorry, release) of Ronan Keating's covers album and now here is the return of Ireland’s biggest-selling group of the 21st century (it sez here) with another collection of earnest ballads and soft-focus pop anthems.
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Westlife (for it is they!) saunter manfully back into view for their twelfth album (and the second since they reunited in 2019 with the inevitability of a Marvel TV spin-off). They sound mostly reinvigorated on a set of 13 new songs that sees them further embrace grown-up pop and invite fresh song-writing talent on board to varying degrees of success.
The band recorded Wild Dreams during lockdown in studios across Ireland and used a home music rig that visited band members’ houses to lay down the songs. Don’t be surprised that these hit-and-run recording methods haven’t resulted in a scabrous punk statement with Kian, Nicky, Mark, and Shane venting spleen about yet another ruddy Zoom conference call.
Wild Dreams is a deeply personal affair for the band, informed by loss and upheaval. It has a default setting of electro synth wash and with sonic template set, the balladeering buachaillí stick it to. It mostly serves them well on this airy confection of romantic swooning, wounded vulnerability, and us against the world defiance. You know the drill.
The band have co-written with the likes of the inexplicable Picture This, Stephen Garrigan of the inexplicable Kodaline, Tom Grennan, Cian MacSweeney of future hit-making Cork trio True Tides, and Swedish producer Rami.
Nothing here was ever going to split the pop atom but the title track is quite the banger and recent single Starlight has something of Abba’s pop sheen, a hooky chorus, solid harmonies and a middle eight you can hear coming the second you hear the first note.
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A quick Wiki check reveals that some bloke called Edward Sheeran had something to do with My Hero and his lab-tested blandness seems to have infected far too much of Wild Dreams, with precious little to distinguish one track from another. Highlights include the Carrigan and MacSweeney co-write Do You Ever Think of Me?, an effective tearjerker with Westlife delivering one of their most convincing vocal performances.
Carrigan and MacSweeney (who are now officially the Bacharach and David of boy pop) are back to pen closing track Always With Me, a romantic weepy which will make for a pretty constellation of iPhones as dusk falls on Páirc Uí Chaoimh and the Aviva Stadium next summer.
Once again, the Westies are at their best when they step away from those darn stools and stop being pop wallflowers. Not exactly wild but fans - young, middle aged, and indifferent - may find this new album dreamy.
Alan Corr @CorrAlan2
