Take That, III, album review: Without Robbie the threesome are awash in vacuous, feelgood clichés

They might currently be number one in the charts, but Andy Gill finds Take That's latest offering utterly lacking

Besides losing two members, on III Take That have sadly also mislaid the re-energised sense of new direction that marked 2010's Progress.

Most songs here sound like capitulations to overworked clichés - the vaunting Coldplay-esque anthem "Freeze", the chugging Keane-like keyboards of "Portrait", the Calvin Harris-style house stomper "Let In The Sun", Gary Barlow's McCartney pastiche "Amazing" - but they're so awash in vacuous feelgood bluster they make the album the pop equivalent of a hot-air balloon.

There's so little imagination: "If You Want It" ("...come and get it", etc) utterly lacks the sly wit of the Badfinger song on the same theme - it's as if they simply couldn't conceive of satirising consumerism, so slavishly do they serve market forces.

By default, the best tracks are "I Like It", which brings a striding Glitterband swagger to electro-stomp style, and "Flaws", which has an idiosyncratic charm lacking in the rest of the album.