September 25, 2009

Source: Teen Today

OK, I’m going to break this to you gently… there are no tracks on Wordshaker that are as good as “Up”. But it’s not all bad news. Because there are about 10 tracks on Wordshaker that are literally very nearly almost as good as “Up” whilst sounding nothing like it. And that’s about 10 more than were on Chasing Lights. Huzzah.

We’ve been wanting The Saturdays to be amazing for about as long as we knew they existed. Personality-wise, they might not be setting us on fire yet but Wordshaker (despite sounding like a prototype name for the game Boggle) is a very fine sophomore album indeed. Why “Forever Is Over“, a stab at pop-rock so soft it’s practically a cuddly toy, was chosen as the lead single when it’s probably the weakest track remains a mystery – so if you actually quite like “Forever Is Over”, imagine how happy you’ll be to discover that every one of the eleven other tracks is substantially better than it. Huzzah again.

The overall sound of the album might not have shifted seismically from Chasing Lights – basically the many many ballads have gone up a gear to become midtempo instead – but thankfully the overdose on schmaltz is long gone and Wordshaker’s big ballad moment, “Here Standing”, is properly gorgeous. In our review of Chasing Lights, we implored the girls to unleash their fierce side more often and on the likes of “Ego”, “One Shot” and “Open Up”, boy do they deliver – pop choons with the perfect sprinkling of rocky rhythms and electro twiddles on top, lyrics that require voices set to ‘belt’ rather than ‘simper’ and Vanessa’s powerhouse vocals to see them soaring through.

Elsewhere Wordshaker is revealed not as an educational game but a liar who twists words and the resulting song is the album’s feisty fantastic highlight whilst “Lose Control”, an explosion of ‘oooo-ooooohs’, “talky bits” and electro-esque squelching, is my personal favourite. When the saccharine finally rears its head on the closer 2am (alas, not a prequel to Busted’s still epic 3am), it’s actually welcome; simply lovely, it’s Wordshaker’s “Why Me, Why Now” and you can’t help falling in love with it. Well, I couldn’t anyway.

Some tracks (“Denial”, “Not Good Enough”) sound a little generic in that they seem instantly familiar – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, just a sign that they have been crafted well enough to get stuck in your head almost immediately. As the Sugababes implode, this is the kind of album we could imagine a diluted Sugababes v2.0 recording, except that comparison really does Wordshaker no justice whatsoever. Come the second album, The Saturdays have found their own sound and guess what? It’s great. Heaven knows how good album three might be. What I do know is that Wordshaker is probably the pop album of the year.

BTW this is a matter almost as important as how good the album is. Frankie has short hair again. YES!