FOREVER the 'cute' one from Take That, Mark Owen insisted before the launch of his first album that during all his years in Britain's biggest boyband there was an indie kid desperate to get out.

Green Man was a reasonable hit, although he never achieved anywhere near the amount of success or adulation as fellow former band member Robbie Williams.

But just as you thought he'd given up the ghost and retired to a farmhouse to meditate and sob over his 90s heyday, he's back.

Surprisingly, Mark doesn't seem to be trying to be something he's not on this album which suggests it's about time he was taken seriously.

It isn't a sneering indie-fest or pretentious spiritual rot and Mark has a genuinely vulnerable quality to his voice that is endearing.

Head In The Clouds, Alone Without You and single Four Minute Warning are the strongest tracks but unfortunately Take That songwriter Gary Barlow has co-written two of the more 'poppy' tunes - Turn The Light On and If You Weren't Leaving Me.

Putting these songs on the album could have been Mark's way of creating a safety net in case the public didn't take to his own music but he really needn't worry, the rest of In Your Own Time proves he's doing just fine without the spectre of Take That.

MC