Boyzone after Stephen Gately

A year before his shock death, Stephen Gately recorded the haunting opening line to Boyzone's new album, Brother: "I will learn to live before I die".

The album, released around the world today, has already raced to No 1 on the British albums chart.

It's a spot reached by all but one of the veteran boy band's previous albums, showing that despite splitting up in 2000 and reuniting in 2007, and outgrowing their band name, Boyzone's fans have remained loyal.

The group, a four-piece since Gately's death from natural causes in October, plan to see how fans respond to Brother before making plans for the future, Ronan Keating says.

Keating will sing alongside Mikey Graham, Shane Lynch and Keith Duffy, in a lineup that told OK! Magazine they were on the brink of a split following the death of Gately.

"We'll see what happens, see how we feel on the road out there without him," Keating says.

"It's hard, we don't know what it's going to be like to perform until we perform.

"We've never performed as a four-piece, we still haven't yet. We've been in the studio but that's a little easier to deal with. Actually going out on stage as a four-piece will be very strange."

Gately's death is "the hardest thing I've ever known", Keating says.

"He was amazing, an amazing character. It just feels like that light's gone out now and the world is not as bright a place as it used to be for all of us."

Although Gately's death was later found to have resulted from fluid in the lungs, a Daily Mail newspaper report linked his death to his homosexuality, saying the circumstances surrounding his death were "more than a little sleazy" and involved drugs and a threesome.

More than 25,000 complaints were made to the Press Complaints Commission about the article, which Keating says was "just horrendous", despite never having read it.

"None of us actually read the article, we were advised not to because we'd get too upset.

"Generally the other press articles were very nice about the situation. They were human, I guess, whereas the Daily Mail one was inhumane and horrible and disgusting, from what I gather."

Avoiding distraction from the press, Boyzone continued work on the album, which features Gately's voice on two tracks, including the first single, Gave It All Away, written by fellow pop star Mika.

Keating says the album is very different to what people have come to expect of the group, who released their first album in 1995.

"There's no ballads on the album, there's no covers, it's very much an adult pop record. It's got all sorts of different flavours from Coldplay to U2 to all sorts of sounds on there."

After more than 15 years together, Keating says he only has one regret about the band.

"When we did break up, there were times when we didn't speak and some of us fell out and I wish that didn't happen, so I would change that."

*Boyzone's new album, Brother, is out now

- NZPA