Audio Junkie: The 38-year-old former Westlife singer Shane Filan loves singing ballads and it shows on his third solo album “Love Always.” Shane Filan It’s a good call as it is what Shane is known for, after all. Add to that his ultimate love for doing this singing and performing thing, and he doesn't have a job---what he has is passion. Enviable as that may be, we get to share in his joy as we go through the songs in his new set. Shane said, “This album is full of some of my all-time favourite songs.” That almost is a guarantee he’ll come across having a grand time singing them. Consider song number one, a remake of N'Sync's “This I Promise You.” If Shane did this during his group's heyday, their fans would think it a hoot. But it sure sounds great today, and also sort of like a nod to their boyband history. Then there’s the faithful recreation of Crowded House's “Don't Dream It's Over.” That certainly takes me back to 1987. And taking it further into the past, he transformed Bryan Adam's signature power ballad “Heaven” into a slightly more dramatic acoustic affair with strings. Shane actually criss-crossed across the decades here. From '85's “Eternal Flame” by The Bangles (a song especially chosen by his fans), he jumped to '97-era Bob Dylan with “Make You Feel My Love,” wherein he conjures up the soft rock mojo of David Gates and probably gave soon-to-be-weds another song to play on their big day. Bonnie Raitt's 1991 hit “I Can't Make You Love Me” is in line with Shane's central balladeer through-and-through theme. Moving forward to more recent fare, his mid tempo power ballad take on Lady Antebellum's “Need You Now” is a convincing argument for Shane's skills as interpreter to be reckoned with. He does leave space for new material as “Love Always.” He also co-wrote the Westlife-sounding “Crazy Over You” and “Unbreakable.” Here with album number three, Shane Filan earns his stripes as a solo artist. Having said that, a solo hit in the future is inevitable. Or maybe it's already here.