Take That, Progress 

Female panty-wetting excitement aside, what exactly does Robbie’s return to the Take That fold mean in musical terms?

Well, opener The Flood gets closest to the bombast of Take That’s classic, epic balladry but Progress really is about, er, progress.

Uber producer Stuart Price has gone to town, drawing on a sonic pallette that embraces nagging electro (SOS) and glam-techno-stomp (Kidz). It’s all very on-trend with Robbie at his charismatic best on the almost-but-not-quite Marylin Manson-esque Underground Machine and the melancholy Wait.

Gary Barlow couldn’t resist slipping in the drippy Casio-driven ballad, Eight Letters and Mark Owen’s David Beckham vocals get way too much mic-time but Progress mostly lives up to its name.

3/5

– Alison Grinter