Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 11/15/2012 at 9:49 AM News

The Popdust Files: one direction, Take Me Home, up all night

“Take Me Home: Taking One Direction’s Winning Formula to the Next Level,” we declared in a recent headline about the sophomore effort from the boy-band sensation. After all, the album just goes harder than debut Up All Night—with more, better in-your-face pop songs that felt like they were gaining momentum and confidence, and far fewer middling ballads that felt like obligatory filler. Even coming just a half-year after the debut, it’s fun enough an effort that it never feels tiring or unwelcome.

Good to see, then, that the group themselves agree about their new effort. Oh, sure, no artist is ever gonna come out and say “Eh, it’s not that great, buy it if you want but don’t get mad at me if it sucks” about their new album, but usually, they’ll only agree that an album is markedly superior to their last one if they really believe it to be true. Indeed, that’s exactly how 1D star Harry Styles says he feels about Take Me Home, even using the same phrase we did comparing the two:

I think on the first album there’s a few tracks we can tell we are still kind of trying to find what One Direction’s sound is and I think this time we kind of know what it is and we can kind of focus on that. We think the songs are better on this album. We think if you listen to the two albums back to back this one is a level up.

“A level up,” indeed. If they keep up this pace, One Direction are gonna find themselves in an epic boss battle soon enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG4pP_geQOM

[MTV]