Pet Shop Boys:
Super:
X2 Recordings:
CD/LP/DD:
Out Now:
For the long-running electro-pop duo's 13th studio album, the bar has been raised with regards to the hype-machine surrounding it. There's been a Shoreditch pop-up 'Super'store (geddit?) designed to launch the album in a blaze of multi-coloured glory, plus a rare CD single issued to gauge initial reactions to another Tennant and Lowe outing. In this digital online age, it's somewhat refreshing to witness.
As PSB album-openers go, Happiness starts playfully enough yet descends into cheesy pop a minute or so later, lacking in anything but an insistent beat and a carefree, some might argue, lazy lyric that won't win prizes anytime soon. The Pop Kids and Twenty-something do little to abate initial concerns that Super might well be a stinker - not since Release have I felt so initially underwhelmed by the usually reliable twosome's faultless pop sensibilities. "Look at me, I'm just so groovy..." - you can't fault their casual abandon on Groovy but you can start wondering when this album will revert to the peak of say Electric, Very or Behaviour. Pop Kids is merely a paltry retread of the superior Saint Etienne single Tonight, to be honest.
But panic not - Pet Shop Boys find their mindful and reflective muse on The Dictator Decides, a mid-tempo playful poke-in-the-eye commentary possibly aimed at the Putins of this world. It's the nearest they get to being political on an album that is all about cramming in as much techno-pop as possible onto a single slab of vinyl. Pazzo! is another near-instrumental interlude that resembles Deadmau5 and the like, while Inner Sanctum continues the club-anthem theme set down by the Relentless companion to Very or the meatier, beatier tracks on Electric.
And for me, this is where Super becomes, well, super with a capital S rather than just a batch of b-sides. Undertow might well be hi-energy but we're in classic Pet Shop Boys territory with harmonies, upfront disco snares and a weird bridge decorated by over-the-top '90s drum-fills. Rivalling Numb, Jealousy and It Always Comes as a Surprise is the weepy minimalist Sad Robot World, a melancholic paean to an age of machination and convenience.
Say It To Me and Burn once again return to the hands-to-the-lazers style of their more recent 12" like Axis and early epics like It's a Sin - suddenly the album hits the fun button and Tennant and Lowe are on a high.
With very few tracks exceeding four minutes, it's hard to fully engage with Super with anything other than your head rather than your feet. As fast as I'm getting into the closing Into Thin Air, it's over, done with, kaputt. Which results in further replays and reassessments and this writer concluding that, musically at least, we have a typical PSB opus that doesn't deviate between as many styles as we're accustomed with but still stands head, shoulders and heels ahead of the competition. Perhaps Super is genius after all, an album that demands further attention, not just a skim through.
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Super:
X2 Recordings:
CD/LP/DD:
Out Now:
As PSB album-openers go, Happiness starts playfully enough yet descends into cheesy pop a minute or so later, lacking in anything but an insistent beat and a carefree, some might argue, lazy lyric that won't win prizes anytime soon. The Pop Kids and Twenty-something do little to abate initial concerns that Super might well be a stinker - not since Release have I felt so initially underwhelmed by the usually reliable twosome's faultless pop sensibilities. "Look at me, I'm just so groovy..." - you can't fault their casual abandon on Groovy but you can start wondering when this album will revert to the peak of say Electric, Very or Behaviour. Pop Kids is merely a paltry retread of the superior Saint Etienne single Tonight, to be honest.
But panic not - Pet Shop Boys find their mindful and reflective muse on The Dictator Decides, a mid-tempo playful poke-in-the-eye commentary possibly aimed at the Putins of this world. It's the nearest they get to being political on an album that is all about cramming in as much techno-pop as possible onto a single slab of vinyl. Pazzo! is another near-instrumental interlude that resembles Deadmau5 and the like, while Inner Sanctum continues the club-anthem theme set down by the Relentless companion to Very or the meatier, beatier tracks on Electric.
And for me, this is where Super becomes, well, super with a capital S rather than just a batch of b-sides. Undertow might well be hi-energy but we're in classic Pet Shop Boys territory with harmonies, upfront disco snares and a weird bridge decorated by over-the-top '90s drum-fills. Rivalling Numb, Jealousy and It Always Comes as a Surprise is the weepy minimalist Sad Robot World, a melancholic paean to an age of machination and convenience.
Say It To Me and Burn once again return to the hands-to-the-lazers style of their more recent 12" like Axis and early epics like It's a Sin - suddenly the album hits the fun button and Tennant and Lowe are on a high.
With very few tracks exceeding four minutes, it's hard to fully engage with Super with anything other than your head rather than your feet. As fast as I'm getting into the closing Into Thin Air, it's over, done with, kaputt. Which results in further replays and reassessments and this writer concluding that, musically at least, we have a typical PSB opus that doesn't deviate between as many styles as we're accustomed with but still stands head, shoulders and heels ahead of the competition. Perhaps Super is genius after all, an album that demands further attention, not just a skim through.
★★★★★★★☆☆☆