The Wanted for those who don’t know, are a British pop boy band based in London and comprise of Max George, Siva Kaneswaran, Jay McGuiness, Tom Parker, and Nathan Sykes. The Wanted burst onto the pop scene in 2010, when the boy band era was had vanished, with little or no competition. Their sophomore effort has a different feel from their self – titled debut, more ballads this time, but also a few dance pop hits for the year. The album is more mature, better produced, and on the whole showing real signs of progress, but sadly it still struggles to hit real high and the boy band status.

The Wanted who knew that Westlife was long gone, have not managed to bring a top of the line album, but we prod on the album and see what it has to offer, nevertheless. The Wanted have all the ingredients of a boy band. Good looks, a few good melodies and above all, music that would make you cuddle up or jump onto the dance floor. The big trump comes from their single ‘Glad you came’ a jumpy piece of work, and pure boy band material. ‘Warzone" has dub step fusing with piano chords and a catchy chorus with spacious beats. It starts off slowly and builds up to an up tempo melody. It also has orchestral touches, very emotional lyrics too.

As is with boy bands, the one thing you can expect them talking about is about love, love and more love. You have the Grammy winner Dianne Warren penned power ballad ‘Rocket’ that sadly fails to fire off the ground, due to its drab lyrics that don’t really appeal.

The quintet is powerful on the vocal front, and well tuned to making a difference, but when you listen to the album at one go, it gets a little repetitious as most songs overlap each other right from track one.

All in all, it is a good, but not great album.

Rating: ***

Reviewed by Verus Ferreira