Review: Kim Wilde – Closer

Review: Kim Wilde – Closer ★★★★

The pop legend’s first studio LP in seven years sees her return to a very specific time, to showcase what she’s been up to since…

The title and cover of Kim Wilde’s 15th studio album are a neat move. Embracing Close, the sleeve recreates the 1988 album’s arms-across-the-face cover shot. For anyone unaware of its predecessor’s heritage, Closer simply suggests intimacy as a title and the cover is still a great pose for Wilde to strike.

While Closer is as eclectic as Close in being an instant Best Of for Wilde’s talents, that doesn’t mean she’s simply rattling out 10 songs resembling that album’s big hits such as You Came (No.3), Never Trust A Stranger (No.7) and Four Letter Word (No.6). Instead, Closer is mature yet still excitable and exciting pop, merged with the extraterrestrial existential questions that Wilde posed on her previous album, 2018’s Here Come The Aliens.

The opening three songs suggest it’ll be Wilde at her poppiest. Midnight Train and Trail Of Destruction are rave-influenced bangers, all full-tilt keyboards and Kim’s commanding vocals carrying the groove with her, rather than the other way around. In between, Scorpio is the album’s most self-referential song, its riff a callback to Kids In America.

Excitable & Exciting Pop

The pace then slows right down for Sorrow Replaced, where ABC-style strings herald what seems like a traditional ballad, until Midge Ure’s stern guest vocals divert the song into harsher territory. That prog mood is enhanced on Stones And Bones, a powerful guitar threatening to go full Joe Bonamassa, kept at bay by Wilde’s voice at its most strident.

It plays with questions of mortality and alien life forms, with Rocket To The Moon a more carefree companion as it stomps about in oversized glam moonboots.

Love Is Love is even more extreme, recalling Ooh La La-era Goldfrapp in its harsh electro mood, combining with Wilde at her breathiest behind the mic. It promptly becomes a classic once the first chorus bursts in at the 75-second mark. It’ll be a killer live, too, though Wilde might be wise to finish her setlist with Love Is Love as it would frankly knacker Chappell Roan or Sabrina Carpenter.

The album’s overall themes are summarised by Savasana, as Wilde sings about acid rain and accepting herself over the sort of ambient keyboard washes that were popularised in the early Noughties by Lamb and Kosheen.

In truth, while this offers a chance to recover one’s breath, it’s a disappointingly drab finale after all that’s gone before, even though there’s a Vienna reference for Midge Ure to enjoy on the pre-chorus’ heartbeats motif.

Having returned to the UK Top 30 last time out, Closer repeated that success entering at No.27… if it hadn’t, well, an album titled Closest would’ve been a total riot.

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Read More: Kim Wilde – Album By Album