Shane Filan // You & Me

 
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Fan Edition
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Having spent the many years as part of the successful group Westlife, earlier this year, Shane Filan released his debut solo single, Everything To Me as a taste of what his solo sound would be. Now, having released his solo album, You and Me, can he shine as a solo artist.

Opening with that debut single Everything To Me it’s swiftly into About You which has an odd sense of sounding melody wise like Train’s Drop of Jupiter. Everything You Need To Know is a beautiful little ballad dedicated to his wife while Knee Deep In My Heart has a little country feel to it…actually…it could easily be James Blunt’s Stay The Night.

One Of These Days opens with a great little ukulele (they seem to be a popular instrument these days) and you can’t help want to tap your feet and clap your feet with it. Everytime has feeling that you can see the crowds swaying and singing the Ohhhhh while Always Tomorrow brings the tempo back down for a nice little guitar strong ballad. The ukulele makes a return for this more upbeat track When I Met You with what we’d call a little country violin turning up just for good measure.

Continuing with an upbeat theme is Everything’s Gonna Be Alright before it’s back to the bar stool for the beautiful ballad that is Coming Home. Baby Let’s Dance does have a hint of Uptown Girl and to be honest, we can see a 80’s theme video for it. The final two tracks we’re torn on if it’s the right order. In The End has that rousing ending feeling to it, perfect to end an album on but then we have the album title track, You and Me sort of drops down into a piano led track, that you can’t help thinking that maybe there should be more…maybe the title track would have been suited either at the start of the album or midway, not here though.

Overall, there is some sense that Filan is sort of sampling the current sound trends and making it work for him. He co-wrote all of the tracks on the album and there a mix of genre here. He has that distinctive voice and looks like he’s prepared work to gain recognition on his own terms and not off the back of his past fame.

Rating: 4/5