Girls Aloud: 'Tangled Up'

During their five-year assault on the pop charts, Girls Aloud have turned presumption-busting into an art form. Formed on Popstars: The Rivals - a forerunner of The X Factor that now seems hopelessly naïve and innocuous - nobody expected the ramshackle five-piece to last beyond their first album. But thanks to their brilliant run of genre-defying modern pop singles, not to mention their dogged refusal to conform to the media-trained blandness of most modern-day chart stars, they stand proud as the nation's most cherished pop group. Ken Livingstone took them to China as "cultural ambassadors"; the Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand came out as fans; and David Cameron told Radio 1 that Cheryl Cole was his favourite group member. At this stage in the game, only the most wilfully miserable indie buffoon could deny a fondness for Girls Aloud.

However, this hard-earned respect has come at a price. For the first time in their careers, Girls Aloud are feeling the weight of expectation on their tanned, toned, exfoliated shoulders. Tangled Up, the group's fourth studio album and their first since 2005's Chemistry opus, will be regarded as a disappointment if it's not fun, frivolous, catchy, sexy and innovative. Thanks to the sterling efforts of Xenomania, the hit-making collective who've produced every one of the group's 16 hit singles, it succeeds on all counts.

While Sugababes, Britain's other great girl group, have recently equated maturity with retreating to mid-tempo and saving their dancing shoes for special occasions, Girls Aloud have thrown caution to the wind and done the exact opposite: Tangled Up is their most danceable album to date. The bolshy electro-rock of 'Fling' is surely the sound that fills Sarah Harding’s head on one of her infamously boozy nights out, while 'Girl Overboard', a slightly ridiculous rave knees up with a vodka rush of a chorus, pushes the group towards BPM overload. There's even a nod towards the Hoxton scene on 'I'm Falling', a thrilling mixture of Prodigy-style beats and intergalactic synths that comes on like a slightly less ear-splitting Hadouken!

Amidst all these transgressions on the dancefloor, Xenomania still find time to bend pop music into strange, exotic shapes. It shouldn't be possible to weld early noughties Gallic disco to souped-up ska-pop, but 'Control Of The Knife' manages just that, while ‘'Black Jacks' somehow recalls both the sixties psychedelia of 'This Wheel's On Fire' and the brief career of shouty popstrels Shampoo. Yes, really. Still, with the benefit of hindsight, the girls might wish they hadn't based their cartoon character rapping technique on Betty Boo, the nineties popstar with whom Cheryl Cole's recently been scrapping in the tabloids.

Mildly upsetting as it is, Tangled Up lets us know that Girls Aloud are growing up. (Well, Sarah Harding has just reached the ripe old age of – gasp! – 26.) Current single 'Call The Shots' tempers its eighties pop exuberance with a generous helping of melancholy, while the titter-filled 'Control Of The Knife' deals with a power struggle within a fledgling relationship. Its killer pay off line - "You're keeping me cold in the night… but honey you're starving!” – confirms what we've known all along: there's a spikiness behind the group's sweet exteriors. That said, their new-found maturity notwithstanding, Girls Aloud are still capable of playing the hussy: 'Close To Love' makes some not so-coy to references to "needing more wood", and 'Fling' finds the kinky quintet in full-on vamp mode. "Don't be getting soft on me," they holler. "Just give me something casually."

Ultimately Tangled Up comes off as a teasing insight into the relationship histories of five girls who've packed a lot of living into their 20-odd years. Girls Aloud are many things on this album – confident, sexy, vulnerable, persuasive, even a bit embarrassing at times – but, crucially, they always sound built to last. Let's call it another presumption busted, shall we?