With their excellent new single "Damaged", Diddy's Danity Kane show signs of actually being able to transcend their early-"poor man's Pussycat Dolls" tag and possibly emerge as a solid equivalent to the pre-fabricated girl group ensembles ruling the roost overseas (Girls Aloud, Sugababes).

A perfect summation of the international dance-pop sound they doggedly pursued on the recent season of MTV's "Making The Band", "Damaged" instantly steals your attention with it's hard-hitting opening attack of thumping 4/4 drums and desperate, syncopated vocals. "Do, do you have a first aid kit handy?/ Do, do you know how to patch up a wound, tell me?", Shannon forcibly blurts out, shattering the arguable misconception of being the group's most forgettable member. It's one of many lyrical hooks the song throws at you, based in a clever take-off of women desperate for their new beau to be the rescuer of their beat-up heart.

While tunes that are production-heavy like this tend to be satisfied leaning on the underwhelming robo-girl strut for the entire length (think the annoyingly linear "Feedback"), Danity Kane opt on not being dwarfed by the sonics, instead taking the chance to show off their vocal-arranging skills by littering the insides of the beat with spectacular harmony dynamics and dizzying lead singer switch-offs that assist in keeping the record from ever losing it's high-energy potency. The studio-crafted razzle-dazzle also takes some interesting detour routes, taking an understandable breather three-quarters of the way through as it adjusts the pace to a mid-tempo stutter-step.

Despite their multi-racial makeup, cool anime-like name, strong individual pipes and a fluke hit with the featherweight, snap & b guilty pleasure "Showstopper" a few years back, not much was really expected out of the reality-TV configured group. But based on the wildly catchy "Damaged", one you'll definitely find yourself secretly replaying in the car with the windows all rolled up, a great pop singles act could be upon us.



DL: "Damaged" (YFH)