When you’ve comfortably shifted 44million albums during a 12-year career that has seen you top the charts on 14 separate occasions, you could retreat into your comfort zone.
Yet veterans Westlife have done the opposite on their eleventh collection.
They knew they could do better than before, and with Gravity the quartet of Nicky Byrne, Shane Filan, Mark Feehily and Kian Egan have come up with their strongest album ever.
Gravity has a renewed sense of heart, soul, vigour and pride. The 12 tracks are crammed with a confidence and poise never before heard from the lads.
And John Shanks, who has crafted hits for Bon Jovi, Take That and Alanis Morissette, is the man responsible more than anyone else for this welcome turnaround in approach.
His influence is inescapable over Gravity’s duration. He manned the mixing desk during the sessions and co-wrote every single track - four with the band themselves.
And from the outset it’s clear this is an outfit with a renewed sense of purpose.
‘Safe’, the first single from the album showcases the awesome emotional weight of an outfit at the height of their powers. Opener Beautiful Tonight sweeps and explodes into life with electronic pulses adding to its sense of euphoria. Chances, a tender meditation on missed opportunity, echoes the grace and drama of Aerosmith’s I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing. I Get Weak is a dark, graphic descent into despair and Too Hard To Say Goodbye a heart-tugging dissection of grief. The peerless pop craftsmanship of I Will Reach You sees the band reach epic new heights; a showcase of their best material to date.
Westlife have quietly made the most triumphant album of their lives.
