Chemistry

About

It’s perhaps still true that no one really expected musical innovation to come from a band put together on a reality TV show. However, as evidenced by hits like “Sound of the Underground” and their second album <i>What Will the Neighbours Say?</i>, Girls Aloud’s brilliance always lay in their anarchic ability to subvert expectations and their willingness to let the songs speak for themselve. As such, <i>Chemistry</i> feels like an apt title for the band’s third album: Much of the record feels like a strange experiment being led by a group of mad scientist. Those gathered around the Bunsen burner here are songwriting and production group Xenomania, who, together with Cheryl, Nicola, Kimberley, Nadine, and Sarah, appear to be conducting research into a new iteration of pop. Indeed, the tracks on <i>Chemistry</i> pretty much do away with traditional song structures and formulaic soundscapes to become mutant hybrid form. On one song, you’ll encounter Gregorian chant, post-punk strumming, and laconic Betty Boo-style rapping (“Wild Horses”), only to a find bubbly beachside hip-swinger about cross-dressing boyfriends running down London’s Old Kent Road (“Long Hot Summer”) a few tracks later. In between, there’s a cover of Dee C. Lee’s “See the Day,” a lusty strutter about kinky one-night stands that references “strippers and the vicars” (“Watch Me Go”), man-hungry rock ’n’ roll (“Waiting”), and a ballad that could have been written by John Clifford Farrar (“Whole Lotta History”). .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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