Wordshaker: First Impressions

Despite every single bitchy pop blog queen in the entire interdots declaring that The Saturdays big lead 'sophomore' comeback single "Forever Is Over" would flop beyond all reason, it's actually doing incredibly well. This signifies that even releasing a substandard mid-tempo pop/rock ballad with an execrable video and derivative production, The Saturdays have entered the public consciousness to a degree that almost everything they release will probably go top ten. How very Girls Aloud, mark 2.

Anyway, their new kitchen appliance, Wordshaker (now available at all Wilkinson's, and Poundstretchers) has had the chance to impress itself upon our ears and the verdict is: 'hmmmmm'. There's much more variety on this one. Despite having lead us to believe that they were heading in a 'rockier' direction, there are still plenty of what lazy pop aficionados have come to label 'club bangers' on the album (most notably "One Shot", "Wordshaker" and "Ego"). This gives an overall impression of a slap-up 'this'll do' approach. A bit of a The Sweet Escape sound going on (i.e. an album full of leftovers from the last one).

The songs on it are not bad as such, but the whole affair feels a little lacklustre spearheaded by one of the album's weakest songs. We'll have to get back to you on this when we've had a more thorough listen, but right now we've got the general impression of a 'good' collection of mainstream pop songs as opposed to the second coming of Britain's New Favourite Girlband. A lot seems to be hanging on the second single choice. Choose well, girls.