The Saturdays are an interesting bunch. Dismissed by many as a poor man’s Girls Aloud or Sugababes, the fivesome have so far failed to reach number one with any of their single releases. Conversely, what the group’s critics often fail to mention is that all but one of their singles have charted within the Top Ten.

What’s more, The Saturdays’ 2008 debut single, ‘If This Is Love’ featured a sample from seminal Yazoo track ‘Situation’. Actually, when you take a closer look, The Saturdays are not all that predictable at all. Over the last three years, they’ve released some real stonkers. However, excellent tracks like ‘Ego’ and ‘Missing You’ have now been surpassed by new single ‘All Fired Up’. Follow-up single to the Top Ten hit ‘Notorious’ from earlier this year, the track signals a real change of musical direction for this Anglo-Irish girl group.

‘All Fired Up’ is a full-blown dance tune, complete with killer trance synth, a thumping beat and, perhaps most importantly, addictive hooks in the verses and chorus. The Saturdays are not aiming for any deep meaning with this track. It is basically an homage to having fun in a club (‘I put my hand against the speakers / Singing “blow my mind, DJ, blow my mind”‘). Okay, so this is not lyrical genius on the part of Xenomania, but it really doesn’t matter when you are throwing yourself around a dance floor to a track in which The Saturdays are basically describing doing exactly the same.

Had ‘All Fired Up’ been released as the comeback single of a newly reformed Girls Aloud, praise would have undoubtedly been heaped upon the track as a bold foray into previously virgin territory for a manufactured girl group. It is testament to the determination of The Saturdays and their team that they are putting a track like this out there. Even if the group does not secure their first number one single with ‘All Fired Up’, it is a fascinating and exciting reinvention for the girls.