Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 17/03/08
Label: Polydor

While attitude, bizarrely complex song structures and a highly developed - annoyingly so in the case of their covers - sense of fun may all be key character traits of the forthright quintet, sophistication has never been a strong point. Yet following "Call The Shots"'s well appointed example, "Can't Speak French" sees further evidence of the maturing of the pop quintet. It is, and few would have thought it possible, a subtle Girls Aloud song.

So much so that it actually takes a good few listens for the sheer brilliance of the measured sexuality (properly smouldering) and satiny '80s swagger (the guitar's straight off "Careless Whisper") to make itself known. And it's not just the presumed Frenchness of their love interest which makes it classy. It's the fact that for once the inescapable chorus is a quiet purr of seduction rather than a bellow of chavtastic shouting. If Girls Aloud have to grow-up, there can be few better ways of doing it.

    by Dan Gennoe