Saints & Sinners

Where the Spice Girls were a call to accessorize for pre-teen girls, enquiring what we really, really wanted, All Saints quickly proved that they were no angels, taking the initiative from 'Lady Marmalade's French letters. Melanie, Shaznay, Nicole and Natalie seemed to have the right amount of savoir faire and sex appeal for boys and girls: one sex wanted to be them, the other wanted to 'do' them.

Their contemporaries may have disintegrated into pubescent platitudes, but All Saints realise that their success lies in the sum of their (doll) parts and have stuck to their intoxicating cocktail of fluffy pop, r'n'b and bump 'n' grind. Time has not curbed their libidos one iota, thankfully, nor their independence. "I know that you want a piece of my ass", they wink knowingly on 'All Hooked Up' before blowing prospective suitors dead in the water with a mixture of raw nerve and mocking laughter.

Recent single, 'Pure Shores' marries William Orbit's swirling galaxies of sound with their harmony-driven pop to perfect effect, and goes some way towards justifiying the fact that it is the biggest selling single so far this year. Forthcoming single 'Black Coffee' is sure to be another monster hit for the quartet, welding clipped, dance (bio)rhythms onto four-way harmonies so saccharine they could have been copyrighted by Nutra-Sweet.

The brilliant 'Dreams' is a demi-ballad that oozes just the right amount of vulnerability and sex appeal, while giving off a stop-start rhythm that tugs the toes and pulls the pelvis with equal ambition. Similarly, the liquid basslines of the sharp and sassy 'Whoopin' Over You' will surely have many a would-be Lothario tying themselves in knots on dancefloors throughout Christendom.

It's not all cherubs and cheekbones, though. 'Distance' and 'Ready, Willing And Able' come on as smooth as a Fonz chat-up line and make all the right r'n'b noises, but they still sound emotionally detached.

Ultimately, the peaks far outweigh the troughs, though, and Saints & Sinners is the sound of an ultra-hip outfit who know exactly where their appeal lies, well-crafted pop tunes that don't ask too much of their audience. Therein lies their charm, and possibly their downfall. These are very much songs for the here and now and will probably age quicker than an octagenarian ousted from Tír na NÓg. But as they sing on 'Surrender', this is their moment: let's just enjoy it with them.