Saying you dislike Take That in their new-and-improved formation is a bit like saying you don’t like Thumper or Bambi: plain wrong. After all, Gary’s lost all that weight and kept it off, so the least you could do is give the guy a break, right? The second long-player from the revamped Fab Four sees them evolve from pert comeback Beautiful World, spinning their sound to a whole new grown-up level, replete with four lead singers, strings, sha-la-la-laaas aplenty and no little amount of joie de vive. With The Circus, it seems that Take That have flexed their ample musical muscle and proven that they’re no pop clowns…
You see, one of the key minus points of Beautiful World was its lack of upbeat numbers: it was as if by gaining stubble and stylish suits, Take That had shunned their past of jelly and leather-clad frivolity, with Shine the notable exception. Not so here. Hello, Up All Night and Hold Up A Light will all have you slapping your thighs with joy, and the likes of epic opener The Garden and Said It All are enough to rouse the most miserly cynic’s pop sensibilities. Above all else on The Circus, Take That sound like they had a whale of a time making it. Ballads aren’t left out either, with the title track a gorgeous slice of old-school Gary at the piano, matched by the Howard-fronted What Is Love, a song dunked in melancholy that wouldn’t be out of place on the stage of any West End theatre production.
What stands out here is that this is a team effort. All the songs were written by the reunited quartet and vocal duties are shared around the group, with Mark scoring more leads than perhaps even he can believe. But even his propensity to squawk doesn’t take the shine off this record. Each song sounds epic, full of heart-melting melodies and uplifting lyrics. Having seen Take That live last year, RealMusic Blog can only wonder how fantastic this new album will be performed live - it certainly seems to have been written with sweeping-lighters-aloft stadiums in mind.
The Circus is an outstanding collection of songs that are perfectly paced and crackle with positivity. It features tracks that would work in Disney movies, on stage and even has nods to The Beatles on Up All Night and Hello. The pressure on the Fab Four to produce must have been immense, but they’ve exceeded even our expectations. The slimmed down, new-and-improved Take That are jet-propelled at the moment and with this record, anything seems within their reach.
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Take That’s The Circus is out on December 1st.
(Clare Lydon)
