WET WET WET
THE JOURNEY
TOWNSEND MUSIC
★★★
Life doesn’t always offer second chances, let alone third ones, but Wet Wet Wet’s seventh studio album does. This isn’t only true for the band, for whom it’s their first in 14 years, having already enjoyed a second bite at the cherry when pearly-toothed housewife’s favourite Marti Pellow rejoined them in 2004, having quit five years earlier to overcome a drug habit. It also applies to Kevin Simm, who took over in 2018 after Pellow left the band a second time the previous year. Simm, of course, came to our attention in 2001 as part of Liberty X, formed by runners-up from that year’s Popstars, then returned to the spotlight in 2016, when he won The Voice. So, is it a case of third time lucky for him, and – given their early 2000s reunion album missed out on the Top 40 – his new colleagues? That depends on how you define success.