Cat. No: 5381502
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 ).
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.
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.
Review copyright © Liam Carey, 2002.
E-mail Liam Carey
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DVDfever .co.uk - Est. February 25th 2000
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
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