Pet Shop Boys

Pet Shop Boys, hmmm.

Now the ever-so-slightly misunderstood elder statesmen of British popular music, but once the nation’s (indeed most of the world’s) favourite synth-pop duo. Those heady days of consecutive UK chart-toppers and global domination may be behind them, with few outside their loyal and still excitable fanbase genuinely interested enough to buy their CDs, but Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have avoided fading into either self-mocking caricature or creative redundancy.

Release is the Pet Shop Boys’ first… er… release since the largely unloved Nightlife in 1999. In fact, the 90s were a funny time for PSB; a heady mix of flamboyant stage shows, an end to the “are-they-or-aren’t-they?” rumours concerning their sexuality, and indifferent sales for often daring albums (Bilingual‘s introduction of South American rhythms and textures, Very’s colourful excesses, the sophisticated club sounds of Nightlife). They have never stood still since their arrival on the scene in 1985, in fact.

The charts of 2002 are a strange breed.. driven by the Pop Idle (sic) phenomenon and overtaken by an unambitious and arrogant industry mentality. For the moment, Pop has been hijacked by Showbiz, the boundaries between them utterly blurred. It’s either the worst possible time for the Pet Shop Boys to step forward, then, or the perfect tonic for all discerning chart music lovers; because God knows, we need the PSB in these troubled times.

Well, thank your lucky stars…. Release just happens to be the finest album they have made since 1990’s Behaviour. Similarities with that slow-burning masterpiece are immediately apparent – 10 songs (no unnecessary 17-track nonsense for the PSB), an elegantly subdued tone throughout, and the 6th track has an Autumnal title (“The Samurai In Autumn”, compared to “My October Symphony” on Behaviour).

The special edition cover.

Much has been made of Release being the Boys’ *rock* album; a convenient angle perhaps, but it’s not really an accurate one. True, I Get Along has something of Oasis about it in the swaying, anthemic chorus, but like elsewhere on Release the atmosphere is far from bombastic. Birthday Boy may feature some guitars too (even a solo, horror of horrors), but it simply couldn’t be by anyone else. Add a little flamenco drum beat here, take a smattering of axe work there, ultimately it still sounds like the Pet Shop Boys. They’ve carved out such a distinctive niche for themselves within pop music, their imprint remains no matter how much they fiddle with the formula’s finer details.

Anyone expecting the club-oriented hedonism of disco grooves and dangerous sex might be disappointed, but Release is all about songwriting basics. The closest there is to a typical PSB uptempo track is The Samurai In Autumn, where the bleeps and beats make an effective appearance.

The camp grandeur of recent years has been kept in check this time; no New York City Boy or Go West to be found. Instead, gently poignant tales of loveand life are the order of the day. Being Boring and You Only Tell Me You Love When You’re Drunk are obvious touchstones from the PSB past to best describe the majority of Release, especially highlights such as London (already a Pet-head favourite, and deservedly so) and the lyrical, wonderfully-observed The Night I Fell In Love.

It’s the latter which will doubtless attract the most attention from critics, with its clever play on Eminem’s notorious homophobia and also Stan, his ubiquitous song about an unhealthily-obssessed male fan. One backstage admirer of a thinly-disguised Marshall Mathers gets invited in for “a private show”, and well, you can guess the rest. Told from the ardent fan’s perspective, the touching narrative’s wittiest line “You’re name’s not Stan…is it? he joked…” ranks amongst Tennant’s best.

Alternative covers for the standard edition.

Release is not above containing the odd filler. E-mail is frustratingly threadbare once the attractive intro and first verse give way to a clumsily weak chorus, and it subsequently goes nowhere for 3 minutes. Final track You Choose is, as with all great PSB albums, a moody ballad… but it’s no King’s Cross or Jealousy (which closed Actually and Behaviour respectively).

Meanwhile, the likes of I Get Along (already confirmed as the album’s second single) and Here lack a certain dynamism in the production. Laidback and mellow are all very well – and indeed the gorgeously simple Home & Dry makes a virtue of it – but there are times when Release does feel just a little too restrained.

These are minor criticisms, however. At a time when pop music, which can be so joyously accessible and yet still artistic, feels uncomfortably and demoralisingly cheapened by those who should know better, the very presence of a shiny new Pet Shop Boys album is reason enough to celebrate. That it includes at least four perfect PSB songs (London, Home & Dry, Birthday Boy, The Night I Fell In Love) and at least two or three near-perfect ones (Love Is A Catastrophe, Here, The Samurai In Autumn) makes Release all the more cherishable.

Trust the Pet Shop Boys to come up trumps when we really need them most.