Albums: Michael Ball And Alfie Boe - Together At Home

Michael Ball and Alfie Boe - Together at Home

Welcome Home; Homeward Bound; Salisbury Hill; Baker Street; He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother; Up Where We Belong; Rule The World; Dirty Old Town; Going Home; Ferry Across the Mersey; Proud; What’s the Craic?

(Tag8 Music)
Returning with their sixth studio album, Michael Ball and Alfie Boe have chosen some of their favourite songs and reworked them in a classical style.

The first single from the album, Proud, is a cover of the M People track, which always seemed to soar along with the distinctive vocals of Heather Small. Here, the duo gives the song a new slant, reinventing it in the process.

Homeward Bound, written by Paul Simon at Widnes train station, appears to relate to the duo who are often on tour, articulately and musically describing the feeling of returning home.

Rather than just concentrating on the familiar standards, a surprise comes in the form of Welcome Home by a little-known band also called Welcome Home, who come from Athens, Georgia. With the feel of a modern, secular hymn or Coldplay gone Deep South, the track gives the album a fresher perspective.

Lancastrian Boe looks to his North West roots by choosing the Ewan MacColl folk standard Dirty Old Town, written about Salford, and the Gary Barlow track Rule The World as the duo build the song into a big, bold, and resolute anthem.

As they close with the Irish medley What’s the craic? With the party in full swing, it appears that the celebrations are far from over for the duo on this eclectic album.