Take That: Wonderland first-listen review – the boyband equivalent of a Reliant Robin

Since their hugely successful reunion in 2006, matured boyband Take That have employed an open door policy vis-a-vis membership. On their return there were four of them – Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Howard Donald and Jason Orange. Then there were five, when Robbie Williams returned for the genuinely bonkers Progress album in 2010. Five then became three when Robbie toddled off to churn out more solo albums and Orange decided he simply couldn’t be arsed with the whole album/tour cycle. Like the friend you always accidentally leave out of a WhatsApp group chat, Orange often came across as the forgotten member, there to make up the numbers, a role that – as any fool knows – is vitally important in a boyband. In terms of dynamics and aesthetics, Take That: The Trio just looks wrong. Without breakdancing Jason Orange, a once sleek and reliable Ford Mondeo has become the boyband equivalent of a Reliant Robin.

While sales of 2014’s first post-Orange album, the Greg Kurstin-assisted III, were well below those of their previous comeback albums, the subsequent tour was another huge success. Tellingly, Wonderland’s existence was first suggested via the announcement of an accompanying tour, with tickets put on sale last October, well before the album was even finished. With a title that screams “built-in arena tour concept”, and artwork seemingly featuring the trio off to a Sgt Pepper cosplay convention run by Noel Fielding, the overwhelming feeling is of an album made purely to justify taking the show around the arenas.

While that’s not exactly a new concept, the cynicism of the idea bleeds into the music, with most of the tracks built around cavernous, chant-heavy choruses like first single Giants’ triumphalist “We are giants”, or the gratingly chipper New Day’s sugar-soaked “Wake up it’s a brand new day, everybody’s got to sing the storm away.” Like an earlier single, Shine, New Day is the sort of laser-guided, focus-grouped, mums-swaying-in-row-three anthem that advertising executives masturbate over, but, like most of the songs here, it sounds expensive and empty. (The song closes with Barlow repeating, “Every morning is a brand new day”, as if we hadn’t figured that out yet.)

In fact, it’s often Barlow, the songwriting mastermind, who lets the side down here. The closer It’s All for You – nice enough otherwise – is hobbled by Barlow’s newfound, quivering American twang, as is the other ballad Hope, while the sparky And the Band Plays sees him trying on Robbie’s swagger for size. (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t fit.) Later in that same song he sings, “Always making something out of nothing”, which is perhaps what the album’s producers felt like because, as with III, the production on Wonderland is distinctly above average.

The title track fuses ambient sitar sounds with a dash of the 1975, only to be let down by a wet lyric: “The music gives me company when I need somewhere to cry.” The excellent Stuart Price-produced Lucky Stars, meanwhile, ditches the bluster for a more streamlined electro-funk feel, while Superstar – also produced by Price – recalls the ominous throb of the Progress album. Sung solely by Owen, Superstar is the album’s oddest moment, the lyrics making repeated allusions to suicide, with a chorus insisting: “I’m a superstar, it’s gonna be a long way down.”

It’s a standout moment because it showcases more than just default triumphalist rhetoric, or the well-trodden journey from sad lament to string-assisted hope for the future. As the album unravels, the lyrics about overcoming unnamed obstacles become harder to figure out, reaching a nadir on Every Revolution, when poor Howard Donald has to try to make sense of “Now there’s water in my well, and the ring has found a bell to tell the world we’re not alone.”

The album’s air of will-this-do? is encpasulated by The Last Poet – not, alas, a tribute to the black power proto-rap pioneers, but an ode to heart-bursting, all-encompassing love. “For you I can’t find words, ’cause for you there are no words,” we are told. Cheers! This from a man who once wrote the genuinely great lyric: “In the twist of separation, you excelled at being free.”

With a back catalogue now bursting at the seams with arena-destroying, singalong anthems, Take That didn’t need to make this album. Get Robbie back, get Jason back, do a massive stadium tour of all the hits and celebrate what’s gone before.