Single Review: The Wanted – All Time Low

The Wanted have been dubbed as the next JLS. Seeing as the band is made up of 5 gorgeous boys, singing and dancing to poptastic hits, it’s easy to see why. However when you actually hear their music it would be difficult to confuse The Wanted’s orchestral music with JLS’s synthesisers.

The Wanted’s debut single, All Time Low, starts with a string section for the first few bars with the sultry tones of Max coming in shortly afterwards. While Tom and Jay also have solo parts, Nathan and Siva duet together on this single. The song quickly builds up from strings and vocals to a full blown synthesised, orchestrated pop number.

It’s safe to say that All Time Low is going to be one of those songs that you find yourself humming along to for about a week before you realise you know the words and are singing along every time you hear it played.

The lyrics to the song are intriguing to say the least. The song starts off about not being able to get over a girl and feeling low after she’s broken your heart. But once you hit the middle eight the lyrics start going on about catching the last train home and then having a vital presentation.

The video is quite dark and makes the song seem very deep and thoughtful. There isn’t much of a story to the lyrics that a video could follow so the guys chose to film it in an abandoned warehouse. This allows the video follow the pace of the music, with not much happening other than the guys walking around and propping up walls here and there to begin with, and then quickly building to a scene with them dancer and singing in a pit, waving around red flares before completely juxtaposing with shots of the boys almost frozen for the last chorus repeat.

When I first listened to the song, I wasn’t sure about the strings at the beginning but it didn’t take long for me to be sucked into the song and want to listen to it over and over again. The video also has a similar quality – even if it’s just to drool over some good looking guys. The Wanted have pulled off a serious contender for the number 1 spot, let’s hope their second single, Heart Vacancy, will be able to live up to the same standards.

Click here to download the single.

By Kitty Opal.