Mr Filan was in Westlife, who sold lots of albums but weren’t really the Review Corner’s cup of tea.
However, he’s written a lot of the songs on here himself, so props to him for that. This is aimed at the same people who liked Westlife — and they should love it — but anyone who likes the more heart-on-sleeve singer/songwriter might find it up their street.
Opener Me And the Moon, written by Jon Maguire, is a throwback to Westlife, all strings and swelling harmony. Track two is I Could Be, a duet with Girl Aloud Nadine Coyle, written by Filan and a pleasant, upbeat tune, with a nice Irish feel to it. There’s a hint of Auto-Tune about her vocals (though we could be wrong). The two voices work well together though it’s Christoffer Thorhauge Dam’s fiddle that brings the song to life (He’s a Danish folk fiddler, as far as we can ascertain).
After that it all goes to nice, slow ballads, beginning with Right Here. Beautiful To Me is an acoustic song that’s reminiscent of James Blunt, and not just because it contains the word “beautiful”. Again, we think there’s a hint of Auto-Tune.
The ballady numbers fall into two camps — the ballad-by-numbers and the rather good: Beautiful To Me is one, as is Better Off A Fool, a piano-led tune. I Can’t Get Over You has nice acoustic guitar. Effortlessly You is fairly predictable but with a nice George Harrison-style guitar break, and probably the song that gets everyone holding their phones in the air pretending they’re lighters.