Robbie back in Take That

They Split up in 1996 with all the acrimony, bitterness and frozen silences of lovers, breaking the hearts of millions of teenage girls.

But yesterday, the five band members of the "boy" band Take That - Robbie Williams, Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange and Mark Owen - announced they had recorded a new album as a fivesome for the first time in 15 years, in the schmaltzy language of reuniting lovers.

"I get embarrassingly excited when the five of us are in a room," said Williams. "It feels like coming home."

As Take That's veteran singer, Williams has until now forged a successful solo career while his former bandmates reformed as a four-piece band in 2005 and climbed back up the charts.

Now he's back for good, it appears, or at least long enough for the band to release a new studio album as a five-piece band, due out in November.

All five singers have written the songs for the record.

The last time they were all in the same recording studio was in 1995, when their fresh faces matched their marketing label as Britain's biggest boy band. But months after bringing out their number one album Nobody Else, an intense enmity was sparked between Williams and Barlow.

Williams wanted to introduce hip hop and rap to the band's squeaky clean pop ballads and his friendship with Orange and Barlow became fractious. During one of the last rehearsals before a tour was due to begin in 1996, Williams left the band under a cloud.

Yesterday, all that was forgotten. Orange said it was "flippin' brilliant", adding: "I'm over the moon that Robbie's back with us, however long it lasts. I just want to enjoy our time with him. Life is beautifully strange sometimes."

Cynics will no doubt sneer at Williams' fortuitous timing at rejoining the band, when Take That is riding high once more. A reunion between the five took place in New York last September, following Take That's recording-breaking The Circus Live tour. Rumours of the album had been rife ever since Williams revealed earlier this year that he was releasing a single, Shame, with Barlow.

The band formed in 1990 when they were still teenagers. They went on to win seven Brit Awards, had five number one albums and 11 number one hits.

-The Independent