So I'm becoming more and more excited for Take That, even though the album has been described as "Lacking Barlow's Ballads" which is really just a shame because Gary -can- write a damn good ballad and not just a ballad but an epic one. However it is produced by the same guy who did the Killers album as well as Keane so if anything this album is going to be very avante garde and it's going to be exciting if anything else. Honestly the only thing I sniffle at is the fact that there are only TEN tracks. Granted there will be b-sides (which I will whore myself to shamefully) and I will bet anyone ten bucks that the b-side for "The Flood" is going to be a ballad by Gary because the title is "In Your Arms" and that's a Gary sounding song if ever I heard one.
Honestly, I know that the four of them realized that it had to be something different with Robbie. I would of been a bit sad if they had tried to recreate the magic of "The Circus" with Robbie, because that album was magic right there. It's good that they're going for a different type of magic, a different perspective.
Though everyone keeps saying "The Flood sounds so much different then what Take That usually comes out with" and I don't see that, not at all. See the thing that I both love and hate about Duran Duran is that they are always trying to capture the magic that is "Ordinary World". Every album has a throwback to "Ordinary World" but really no song could ever be as epic as that. But Take That manages to create a successive string of songs that -are- epic. From the Beautiful World album it was (for me) Beautiful World, then it was "Rule the World", then it was also "The Garden" and "Greatest Day". "The Flood" reaches an epic that puts it in line with those other string of epics.
Because with Take That, I need that one epic song on my album, the song that is the flag ship for everything else that comes after it. It has to be massive, and quelling like a ocean that can't be stopped. The vocal signatures are different, but ultimately it's not just a song.. it's a force.
~I like that sentiment quite a bit, honestly. :D