Pet Shop Boys - Yes (Parlophone)
4/5
By: Tom Hocknell
If you are in the music business for long enough, it is not other bands you compete against, but yourself- and here, the Pet Shop Boys only match previous achievements; like that's a bad thing.
This, their 10th album, occupies a similar space to 1993's Very, which followed their arguably best work, 1990's downbeat Behaviour, spelling the end of their 'Imperial' phase, as Tennant himself described it. Following a comparatively fallow period, their last album, Fundamental, was a similarly subdued affair, which makes this a return to arms.
It opens with the barnstorming single, 'Love, Etc.' a bona fide hit, with instantly recognisable chords revealing new subtleties with each listen, but is followed by a rare example of a song being too catchy. 'All Around The World' that despite a swooping chorus, and borrowing perhaps too heavily from Tchaikovsky, never quite gels. It illustrates the occasional weakness of working with Xenomania, that occasionally 'too many cooks' do spoil the pop froth.
However, the 60's influenced 'Beautiful People', with echo, lush strings (Owen Pallet - Last Shadow Puppets) and harmonica (Johnny Marr), sails on a verse as sweet as anything they've done. Marr returns with a Smiths-guitar hook on 'Did You See Me Coming?', which competes with Isaac Hayes' 'Hold on, I'm Comin' in the double entendre stakes, and is a summery pop song, sounding like it took 5 minutes to write - as all hit songs should do. While 'Pandemonium', written for Kylie, retreads old ground, the gentle, Spanish guitar-led 'Vulnerable' also harks back to the Behaviour-era; sounding like an outtake from their Liza Minnelli album sessions, albeit with contemporary, electonica flourishes. It is on these quieter (and increasingly more typical) PSB moments, such as 'King of Rome', that the album most shines.
Girls Aloud moments are surprisingly rare, although 'More Than a Dream' has enough stab-synth moments to keep most electronic bands in a career. Nevertheless, other than Chris Lowe singing on the bonus disc (Etc.) with Phil Oakey, the highlight is 'The Way It Used To Be'; a hypnotically driving elegy that seizes the baton from Being Boring, and demands to be repeated from the moment it's finished. A PSB characteristic notably lacking here is irony, as on the orchestra-drenched final song, 'Legacy', that grows with each listen, despite its almost unbearable sadness, and is reminiscent of their co-write 'It Couldn't Happen Here' with Ennio Morricone on Actually.
This album captures the healthy hooks of Xenomania contemporary pop, and builds on the 'return to form' established on Fundamental, placing the 'boys' back where they should be, at the very heart of British popular music, if not the charts.
Artists in this article: Pet Shop Boys
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