One Direction had to grow up sometime. On their fourth album, the five teen heart-throbs take another skinny-jeaned step from peach fuzz and bubble-gum pop to day-after stubble and soft rock. In fairness, they’ve always swung more towards powerpop and rock than R&B. Surely someone at Simon Cowell’s Syco, the label behind both One Direction and The X Factor, saw an opportunity to develop the group into an outfit like Mumford & Sons back when Harry Styles and co were still flashing cheeky grins and breaking into the US with the 2012 album Take Me Home. Here, their reverb-laden voices sound polished and tightly mixed, woah-ohing over sing-along choruses on Night Changes and Where Do Broken Hearts Go? The single Steal My Girl recalls Springsteen’s foot-stamping bombast, coated in a sugary gloss, and on this album at least one of the five band members has a writing credit on most songs. It’s hardly groundbreaking pop, but Four is capably sung and beautifully produced.
