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.::. City Offline: 'Review: Girls Aloud - Out Of Control'
Published November 2008

Girls Aloud albums seem to have become a yearly event, much like Christmas, your birthday, and er... Sugababes albums. But while the ’babes stumbled and fell with their new release Catfights And Spotlights as it’s slipping down the charts, Girls Aloud already have a number one single at hand and an album set to make just as much of an impact.

Opener and first single The Promise is lush and catchy in all its 60-inspired unwavering brilliance, but sadly fails to set the tone for an album that ends up being all over the place. Out Of Control pushes the envelope further with all its genre-mixing – there’s the drum’n’bass-tinted Live In The Country, reggae-inspired Revolution In The Head, and flamboyant europop of Pet Shop Boys collaboration The Loving Kind. Miss You Bow Wow might have the best chorus of their career, but it doesn’t help when the song structure is a mess and the one minute rave-up at the end leaves you confused and seasick.

Nadine Coyle’s ever-so-fierce vocals are mysteriously absent on a lot of the album, and while the sweet purity of Nicola Roberts is a welcome change as she takes the front seat on some of the tracks, it just doesn’t sound like Girls Aloud anymore. It’s a shame, but the sad truth on an album where the best lyric ends up being ”gimme tha ting, gimme tha ting, da da da oh oh oh”.

3/5

Released: November 3 2008
Label: Fascination UK

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