Sugababes: 'Change'

The odds were stacked against the Sugababes on this one. According to conventional wisdom, or at least the faux-sympathetic cliches that get spouted by wisened music hacks and eighties record company survivors on all those Channel 4 list shows, the greatest hits collection is the manufactured pop group's last hurrah. After treating us to last year's Overloaded: The Singles Collection, the Sugababes were supposed to disband, sell their tales of decadent pop mayhem ("Keisha ate my hamster!") to the less prominent gossip rags, and eventually launch a trio of ill-advised solo careers. The Butlins New Year's Eve Party of 2012 beckoned. Instead, and with characteristic obduracy, the girls have staked out the number one spot with current single 'About You Now', an electro-fuzz-pop nugget whose chorus approximates the rush of sugar you taste when you bite into a particularly sherbety sherbet lemon.

What's more, Change, the strop-faced pop trio's fifth studio LP, suggests that Keisha Buchanan, Heidi Range and new(est) recruit Amelle Berrabah aren't ready to surrender their grip on the pop charts just yet. Pre-release rumours claiming that the group had decided to pursue a rockier, more mature direction weren't entirely misleading, but the Sugababes have managed to grow up without losing their way with a melody. 'Denial' rides its elastic soft rock verse to a melancholic, harmony-soaked pop chorus, while the epic, filmic 'Change' bolsters its anthemic melodies with layers of surging guitars. Even 'Never Gonna Dance Again', a collaboration with Xenomania, the songwriting/production collective who ushered the group towards the dancefloor on previous hits 'Hole In The Head' and ‘Round Round', seems to showcase a more reflective Sugababes. Its desperately sad disco lament – "As the final record starts to fade, I feel the dancefloor turning colder" – is conducted almost entirely at mid-tempo.

However, the Sugababes haven't abandoned the discotheque entirely. Lead single 'About You Now’ is one of the year's most danceable pop songs, while 'My Love Is Pink', Change’s other Xenomania collaboration, is a slightly unhinged handbag anthem operating at the point where nineties dance and noughties electro collide. With its bolshy beat, slower, Range-sung middle 8 and teasing hint of filth underneath the surface – "Butter wouldn’t melt in mine tonight…" – it feels like vintage Sugababes. 'Back Down', meanwhile, sets the group's seamless, slightly nonchalant harmonies to a grubby skank rhythm track.

Change, like every Sugababes album, isn't entirely devoid of filler. 'Open The Door' is a dated slice of mid-tempo R&B – shouldn't Mutya Buena have taken this sort of thing with her when she flounced out in December 2005? – and 'Back When', a pretty folk-pop ditty, could have been recorded by TLC at any point in the nineties. However, the irresistible conclusion is that the Sugababes have managed a nifty trick on Change: by maturing without surrendering their pop smarts, they've made their most consistently entertaining album since their self-titled debut. At this rate, Butlins is going to have a very long wait indeed.