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Westlife: Wild Dreams review – desperate divorced-dad energy

(Warner Music)
The stool-bound ballads are the highlights, but elsewhere the icky lyrics and outdated production keep the man-band well away from cool

From Sex and the City to pop-punk to low-slung jeans and tiny bags, the early-00s revival has been wide-ranging and frantic. It feels easier to list the turn-of-the-millennium culture that hasn’t been post-ironically reappropriated by Gen Z – and Irish crooners Westlife are among the last ones standing (or rather, perched uncomfortably on a tall stool).

Not that the foursome, who specialised in soppy, R&B-dusted pop, have been idly waiting to be rediscovered. After their astonishing 00s success (17 consecutive top-five singles, including 14 No 1s), the group split up in 2012, and re-formed in 2018. Their chart-topping comeback album, Spectrum, drew on the songwriting nous of young(ish) talents Ed Sheeran and James Bay. Wild Dreams reunites the band with Sheeran for the melodically pleasant but lyrically lacklustre My Hero, while Tom Grennan assists on the perfectly functional Starlight.

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