“I just want a lover,” sang Will Young on a song of that name in 2011. Four years and another break-up later, he’s recorded an answer song. “I don’t need a lover, don’t need another heartache to forgive and forget,” he broods on 85% Proof’s closing track, I Don’t Need a Lover – and this time he’s a long way from the slicked-back funk of the first song. This one is a piano ballad dominated by a vocal performance of silvery regret and loss. It’s a reminder of how good Young can be (and how much he has influenced Sam Smith). His strength as a vocalist is the thread stitching together an album that is otherwise pleasantly all over the shop. The detached synthiness of his last album is supplanted by get-happy R&B clappiness on Love Revolution, and Latinate hedonism on U Think I’m Sexy, but there’s also symphonic balladeering on the Gold and Brave Man – his first political songs, though their pro-individualism message is obfuscated by platitudes about “believing in me”. It’s an album of ups and downs, but secures Young’s position as an artist who’s good to have around.
