Here's a review of "Step One" from MTV Online.

Go for what you know. Steps, the newest Britpop concoction, is an amalgam of the sure bet: three Britney Spears/Mandy Moore/Jessica Simpson/Christina Aguilera-like girls and two Backstreet Boys/'N Sync/98 Degrees-like guys with ABBA sensibilities and the Spice Girls' colorful internationalism. Steps, therefore, is -- formulaically, anyway -- the consummate group. Testosterone crazed guys will go gaga over the girls; adolescent teenyboppers will drool for the guys.

But what works for the U.K. doesn't always work for the U.S. Americans rarely punctuate their afternoons for high tea or sip kidney soup, but more relevantly, the U.S. never embraced electronica and club music the way the U.K. did. And Step One, rooted in deep club bass and industrial composition, might not, despite the fact that it is a fairly good album, catch on in the U.S.

Steps reinvents the Bee Gees hit "Tragedy" for the new millennial club scene with high tech production and endearing, breezy vocals. "Say You'll Be Mine" is a sunshine yellow giddy track and "Last Thing on My Mind" manages to make heartbreak danceable, with its assured female lead. "One for Sorrow" swirls with nightclub intensity. "Love's Got a Hold on My Heart"'s spirited, ebullient chorus may have you searching for a disco light and dance partner. It's embarrassing to admit it, but the line-dancing ditty, "5, 6, 7, 8" is the album's catchiest tune. Think bluegrass banjo meets West Village house. It could be the anthem of Oklahoman ravers; it could spark the next Macarena-scale dance craze.

As expected, Steps' lyrics are asinine (for example, "Say You'll Be Mine" includes a corny allusion to the group name, "an' step by step I can feel how close we're getting"). Although Lee, H, Faye, Claire, and Lisa are technically good singers, they still need big sonics to carry a song. Save for its heavenly guitar bridge, the slow moving "Heartbeat" and ballad "Stay With Me" sound puny and vapid. Generally, however, Steps faithfully follows its blueprint of colossal, blissful, ecstatic sounds.

So unlike the Spice Girls and the Rolling Stones, Steps may not completely invade the American soundscape, but they might at least, in that twilight zone where teen-pop and house meet, penetrate it.

Steps album - track-by-track

Having released three albums in three years Steps return with their strongest collection yet - polished without being flat, adventurous without losing the plot, more mature without forgetting it's supposed to be fun. And with a couple of exceptions 'Buzz' is an album whose subject matter is thoroughly depressing. There's an array of songwriters and producers who run through the album - from Pete Waterman and Cyndi Lauper (fear not, it's fine) to Swedish uber-producers Cheiron and (usually the kiss of death) the band themselves. 'Buzz' may not see Steps attracting many new fans, but crucially in today's over-crowded teen pop market it's unlikely to see fans heading off in search of pastures poppier. We've rated each track on 'Buzz' and given a mark out of ten using the ultimate barometer of pop worthiness: whether it'd make a good mobile ringtone.

The point when a nation of 23-year-olds screamed "I can't believe they've done this to my favourite record!" and promptly realised they'd turned into their own parents, this Kylie cover was originally bundled with 'Say You'll Be Mine', last Christmas, and saw Steps parading about the stage quite literally in devil horns. A splendidly literal interpretation of the song title and one that kind of ignores the fact that it's one of the best songs ever written regardless of who chooses to perform it.

'A tribute to' Chic, 'heavily inspired' by 'Everybody Dance', and the launch single for 'Buzz' (both 'Better The Devil You Know' and track 3, 'Summer Of Love', have been AA-sides), is a fizzy disco bunny and well, basically it just sounds like Steps covering 'Everybody Dance'. There's a good bit where you can clap your hands, if you're so inclined.

Saint Etienne's 'Pale Movie' colliding with Hazell Dean's 'Who's Leaving Who?' and Irene Cara's 'Flashdance (What A Feeling)' was never likely to be shit and the AA-side to this summer's moody black and white ballad 'When I Said Goodbye' stands its ground here on track three, a scorching sunbeam that sticks by the ancient Pop Rule that all albums should start with three singles. And these have already been singles!!!

Noticed how the production team responsible for people like Britney 'n' Backstreet 'n' *N Sync 'n' stuff favour an odd vocal technique that sounds like the singers are being mildly strangled? Well here it is, happening to Steps! Fortunately none of them are actually choked during the course of the song, which sees the quintet scaling new heights of tunefulness. "Tell me how can I walk away? /I don't care what they say - I'm loving you anyway". Corking. Also launches into an amazing Abba-esque flourish in the middle eight - it's the greatest song Steps have ever recorded and we're only four tracks into the album!

Basically this is the dumped lover pouring her heart out in 'One For Sorrow' realising that, actually, the whole relationship business was a bit of a lucky escape to be honest and that it is the dumper, rather than the dumpee, who will "be sorry". In the long run. Then again, it's written by the people behind 'One For Sorrow', so that's that one sorted out. "One day believe me you'll be sorry, you're gonna feel this pain/One day you'll see me and remember the promises you made/Just wait and see how you'll be sorry". Another upbeat disco extravaganza.

H's song. Any track that begins as if it's about to launch into 'It's Raining Men', then proceeds not to, is going to be something of a disappointment, and 'Learn To Love Again' isn't one of the strongest tracks on 'Buzz'. "I know the pain will pass/I'll get there in the end/Somehow I'll learn to love again" is all very melodramatic though the backing - intended to be sort of breakbeaty - just sounds unfinished, while the chorus is nothing to write home about. In fact it's not even worth emailing home about. Vocoders feature.

Kicking off with a danceable introduction and a rampaging "Get over, get over" (someone's been listening to Grace's 'Not Over Yet', from the sound of things), this is the one Lisa did on the Steps tour earlier this year. The one where she had her wedding dress ripped off. Remember? Well it was ace. Stomping drum rolls and top notch disco sound effects are wheeled out and Lisa's vocals even show a bit of emotion in the second verse, which is a turn up for the books. "Starting again, this time I'm learning my lesson", she sings. "Now I know that I'll never get over you". And then - this is the masterstroke - there's a church organ!

Not, disappointingly, another Kylie Minogue cover, 'Hand On Your Heart' is Claire's number and comes on like Madonna's 'Frozen' (all soundscapey windy effects and swooshing) with a little nod to Dina Carroll's 'Perfect Year' - and it's the first ballad on 'Buzz'. Also manages the double-whammy of all pop cliches: "Hand on your heart/heart on your sleeve".

The Ace Of Base revival starts here, and about bloody time. Nice lyrics, too: "I'm wearing this disguise so everyone can think I'm having fun/Everyone sees me smile but they don't know the truth every night - 'cos that's when I hide my sorrow/And they call me happy go lucky, they don't know my heart's dying inside/I do my happy go lucky so well I'm even fooling myself". People thinking she's lucky? But she's not too happy about it? Do you think she cry, cry, cries in the lonely car, too?

The opening bars of the (almost) title track echo *N Sync's 'Digital Get Down' - they've also thrown some crowd noise over the top and you can't really go wrong with that. Twenty seconds into the track it all drops off and Ace Of Base are back but, as we move towards the chorus, it all makes happy sense. Steps also provide hope to songwriters unable to get their lyrics to scan: the chorus is "I get a b-b-buzz off you/Just be-c-c-c-cause I do". Shamelessness is nothing to be ashamed of, as nobody once said.

And so we come to the greatest song Steps have ever recorded. It's the end of a relationship ("Time is running out on you and me"), the whole thing's gone tits up, but there's one chance to save everything. "Here and now I wanna be the one for you, and everything you want me to/Cos' I couldn't live if we're apart/Say there's something I can do/If I can make it up to for everytime I've let you down/Let's tear down the walls together/It's better late than never" .And the heartbreak keeps on coming. "I wanna fall in love again", they sing towards the end. But the listener knows it will never work. And we'll tell you this: if this was a Britney Spears 'n' Justin Timberlake duet it would be a crying-during-'Christmas Top Of The Pops' moment to rival Kylie 'n' Jase's now legendary 'Especially For You' extravaganza.

Nik Kershaw's 'The Riddle' with yet more relationship traumas. This time it's a holiday romance that's gone wobbly "Paradise lost is a place without you/In the shadow of love there's no room with a view/Walking alone on the sand/Wish you were here again". Holiday romances never last, do they?

It's Lee's track and it includes the line "Your love means everything to me". Which it quite hackneyed in a way, but in the same way when people argue they tend to yell cliches at each other so that's alright. Another high energy (rather than hi-NRG) moment, this time with a tinkle of Spanish guitar, but ends with a feeling of emptiness.

The penultimate track on 'Buzz' pulls some familiar strings in a 'Stay With Me Baby' soul belter kinda way - it's stripped down and funky and miles away from the tracks that open the album. Lines like "I've got to put an end to what I've been dying to start" and "It wouldn't hurt so bad if it didn't feel so good" come from the Stereophonics 'Hurry Up And Wait' school of lyrics that sound clever but when you think about it just don't make sense. "I've never met somebody that does what you do" , a Stepster sings. Presumably to an escapologist, or something.

Gently reminiscent of the theme to 'Jurassic Park', the fact that the final track on 'Buzz' is a ballad won't result in too many front pages being held. It's all about "believing in dreams" and achieving what you can in life and turning tiny streams into seas, and all sorts, and you can do it too, y'know, etc. etc. An inevitable end to a surprisingly strong album.