Girls Aloud - Out Of Control

Yes! It's here! All the fuss over this album is certainly well deserved, I hail this my favorite album of the year so far!

You see, Girls Aloud, like the Sugababes, have managed to add hints and influences of another genre(60's-ish stuff..) but keep their trademark sound. It's that identity thing again, but your heads might be bursting with that so let's move on.

The other thing they've done was baffle all the copycats. Tangled Up was very dance-y, very pop/dance, but this year, they've moved away from the Sexy! No, no, no...'s and moved over to The Loving Kind's, catching all the wannabes unaware. Take the Saturdays, you can see how much they want to be Girls Aloud. Work is an amazing song, but there are elements of a certain GA period in it.

I've got to admit, Girls Aloud is an 'acquired taste', it took me a long time before I actually started adoring them. Maybe it's because their sound is so different from the US stuff and they change so rapidly that no one in the UK scene has time to take influences from them. But still, they're not the biggest girl group in the world for nothing, and this album just confirms the title.

Each and every song on this album sounds very Girls Aloud, each and every song has something different about it, but each and every song is amazing, there are no weak songs on the album. The most outrageous song on the album is probably The Promise, it's the one that sounds least like a Girls Aloud song, but it's a strong start to the album, and an amazing single choice(have you seen the X Factor performance? amazing.)

Rolling Back the Rivers is an amazing song, it starts out with hardly anything, then turns into a Call The Shots-ish song before launching into an amazing(and addictive) chorus. Love Is The Key starts out with this choral thing, then just stars getting very 60's-ish, then becomes something like Fling, when they talk instead of sing. I can sense a pattern here, can you?

And now I see why Popjustice said not to listen to the album clips. They indeed didn't do justice to the album, and didn't give us clips to process. I wasn't that convinced by the clips, to tell you the truth, but the minute I finished listening to this album, I wished I hadn't heard the clips. Anyway.

Turn To Stone is very clubb-ish, the instrumental could be playing in a club or during a fashion show. And as usual, the chorus is just amazing! Nicola's vocals were the perfect choice to start off Untouchable, one of my favorite songs on the album. Plus, it sounds a lot like Call The Shots, again.

Let's take a moment to worship the ground Xenomania walk on, shall we? They've once again created amazing songs that highlight Girls Aloud's voices, and the style they've created for the amazing girl group.

Moving on, the rest of the album is just amazing, I can rattle on all day about how much I adore the songs, but I won't. So let's move on to my ultimate favorite song on the album.

The Loving Kind is the absolute best song on the whole album for me. A few weeks ago, Popjustice streamed a clip of the song and I just adored it! The song is gorgeous, the tempo accents the melody very well, and the melody in turn, accents the vocals amazingly. I just can't get enough of this song, everything about it is just amazing, my ultimate favorite Girls Aloud song, that's for sure! Edit: I can't get the song out of my head! I just keep humming and humming and humming and humming! And then I just keep on listening to it. It's not on gorgeous, it's addictive!

Girls Aloud has once again defied the boundaries of UK pop, and they've done it amazingly. Not some haphazard, scared and confused album, they've made something that will be stashed in record collections for many years to come!(corny?!)

So, to sum up the album:
Best Track: The Loving Kind
Better Tracks: Everything else
Least Favorite Track: none, to tell you the truth.
The whole album in one sentence: The best album of 2008 so far, it's drop-dead gorgeous, brilliant, amazing, mind-blowing and any other positive word I can think of.
THE RATING: 5/5(YES! Perfect!)

Buy it when it comes out in Ireland on October 31 and in the UK on November 3!