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True
Colour of Blood - The Significance of Secrecy COLLAGE Various
Artists - Memento Soundtrack The
Pet Shop Boys are back! Technically, this album
won’t be “released” (heh) in the United States until April, but
well-connected lass that I am, I managed to snag a copy early, in order
to give you lot the lowdown. And the lowdown is … get it! If you’re a fan
of the Pet Shop Boys you’d likely buy it anyway, but I’m here to confirm
that its worth the money. This
is not your father’s PSB, founding fathers of synthpop.
Their music still uses primarily synthesizers, but it’s a gentler,
poppier PSB. In recent years
they had gone to a more techno-dance sound, but this has been obliterated
from Release. Its still catchy,
and Neil Tennant is still singing, but that’s the only similarity that
I see. I
hate to do it, but I have to make a Beatles comparison.
This is the Pet Shop Boys’ “Abby Road” for their generation. Its very pretty, irresistible, well-written Brit-pop. The song “I
Get Along”, in fact, could have been lifted directly from a Beatles
B-Sides album. In the first
track on the album, “Home and Dry”, I hear remnants of “Its Allright”
from an earlier era. There are moments in this song where the vocals
are obviously computer-distorted --- and it works.
Undoubtedly, some studio whiz is remixing this track as we speak,
adding a back-beat and speeding it up to make it more club-ready.
But I like it just the way it is.
This album is the PSB album for your darker rainy nights. Its
bittersweet and soulful, and to be honest I never thought I’d be using
those words to describe a PSB album! But it is so. The entire album
is, of course, well-produced. At
times, Neil Tennant’s vocals sound as though he’s been taking singing
lessons from Beth Orton, Thom Yorke, and Belle and Sebastian. What the
… ?! The song “London” is a particular example. It starts simply with
guitar and piano then kicks in some atmospheric background and beats
a la Everything But the Girl. Soooo nice. “Email”, as well, is a more
laid-back groove with electronically-altered vocals and a little violin
here and there. “Love is a Catastrophe”
is your token PSB angsty ballad, and “Home” is very inspiring and sweet.
Only, in a good way. In many ways this album seems like a return to
an earlier state for PSB. In
the 80s they were always synthy and electronic, to be sure, but they
wrote excellent songs with clever lyrics, and I feel as though they
got away from that a bit when they got preoccupied with techno and tight
electronics.
There’s
these odd retro-funk tidbits crouching and hiding among these songs.
Like PSB has taken snippets of crazy soundtracks from bad sixties and
seventies movies and revamped them. Notably, I was listening to the
track “The Samurai In Autumn”, noting that: a) It’s really good b) It’s
the most immediately club-ready track on this album and c) the woo-woo
funkiness reminds me of the soundtrack to a movie that I watched MST3K
rip to shreds: “Diabolik”. How strange! But delightful.
I
am a bit confused and taken-aback by this strange new incarnation of
the Pet Shop Boys. It has thrown my head, and my preconceptions,
for a drum-loop. I love to see when artists show that they can work
with different styles just as successfully as the genre they’re associated
with. I’m glad to see this
example of the Pet Shop Boys’ true songwriting ability taken out and
dusted off --- I hope they display it proudly on the mantle for a while,
instead of returning it to its box in the attic to be forgotten. Rating: Odd Beatles-esque electronic Brit-pop Stars:
Recommended if you like: The Beatles, Radiohead, Belle and Sebastian, Early Pet Shop Boys, Beth Orton, The London Suede, The Manic Street Preachers, The Smiths Track Listing: 1.
Home and Dry
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