It was only a matter of time... until the Wanted stepped tentatively into the world of dubstep. Albeit, with their usual boyband twists, the usual kind of female-fanbase-friendly titillation.
For starters, the beat doesn't even kick in till a minute into the track - taking cues from Glad You Came, the boys have clearly worked out that the formula of emo-ballad-into-mover-and-shaker really works for them. A bit of smoochy piano, and then - to coin The Black Eyed Peas' phrase - the 'dirty bit'.
Just as Heart Vacancy served as the perfunctory lighters in the air single from their debut album, so to does Warzone continue the tradition. For me though, a song like this feels flat removed from the live setting. Pained and heartfelt it might be, shoving all kinds of metaphors of a warzone/relationship at you, but the trouble for me is that there's just so many better tracks on the lads' Battleground album they could have released instead.
The video plays up the damaged love theme too - positioning the boys on a ruined scrap of industrial land littered with smashed-up cars. It looks rather nice, but it doesn't match the cheeky bawdiness of the dynamite-in-car moment from their previous video.
After such a stellar run of singles - Gold Forever, Glad You Came, Lightning - this feels like a bit of a comedown, a limp end to the preceding amazing night-out. What's needed is something like the fantastic Invincible to bring the pace up again, because when the Wanted go up-tempo, there's really no beating them within the boyband market.
Warzone is released on the 9th January.
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