The Pet Store Boys take pleasure within the reality, to cite their 1990 opus, that over their 4 many years within the sport, the critics may by no means accuse them of “being boring”. In actual fact, their fifteenth studio album sees the band staying true to their acquainted core DNA whereas discovering recent sonic sandboxes to play in. For ‘Nonetheless’ – persevering with the cardinal rule of one-word titles – Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe attached with Arctic Monkeys producer James Ford and, following their current Berlin-set trilogy that started with 2013’s revitalising ‘Electrical’, the outcomes really feel extra lush, stately and majestic.
Every observe is bedecked with a full orchestra, and people swooning strings are deployed to notably efficient use on the Burt Bacharach-esque ‘The Secret of Happiness’, which is virescent with new love, and ‘A New Bohemia’, the place light stars attempt to discover the brand new taking place scene like cultural orphans. Each these tracks discover the duo totally leaning into Tennant’s documented love of Nineteen Sixties music – even the pop-fanfare of lead single ‘Loneliness’ (which may have come off their 1993 album ‘Very’) features a lyrical nod to Ringo Starr “strolling down the canal/downcast and alone”, whereas the euphoric ‘Dancing Star’ chronicles the ballet icon Rudolf Nureyev’s defection from Soviet Russia in 1961, and is awash with the type of twinkling synths that Madonna may need shimmied to in New York’s Danceteria.
Primarily written throughout lockdown, ‘Nonetheless’ unfolds like a 10-song brief story assortment, peppered with richly-drawn characters, and esoteric cultural references. The woozily romantic ‘Really feel’ – initially earmarked for a Brandon Flowers solo album – paints an image of someone counting down the times till they will go to their lover in jail and aches with longing. The electroclash ‘Bullet for Narcissus’, in the meantime, marries New Order guitars to the inner-psyche of a bodyguard tasked with defending a Trump-like tyrant who’s “so banal he’s fabricated from mainstream”.
Better of all nevertheless, is the wistful and nostalgic instant-classic ‘New London Boy’, a companion piece to aforementioned ‘Being Boring’, detailing Bowie-loving Tennant’s transfer to the capital in 1973, taking his first steps into pop stardom and sexuality. With evocative lyrics (“Everyone’s watching / Seize your likelihood / All it takes is a stolen look”), it encapsulates the sensation of stepping right into a homosexual disco for the primary time – to paraphrase author Paul Burston’s sleeve-notes to final yr’s ‘Field of Sin’ hi-NRG compilation – terrified that someone would possibly communicate to you and equally terrified that no person will. The observe was impressed by a demo Tennant had written when he was aged 17, pondering the place he can be in 15 years’ time. Fifteen years later, he was at Quantity One with ‘West Finish Ladies’, and ‘New London Boy’ doffs an ‘80s BOY cap to it by having him revisit its rap-style.
Tennant, one among pop’s nice theorists, just lately remarked to NME that he thought, subconsciously, this is perhaps their “queer album”, and the climatic ‘Love Is the Regulation’ sees him poetically recounting Oscar Wilde’s post-prison keep in France, watching sexual transactions within the shadows, because the music bombastically swells like a misplaced John Barry-composed James Bond theme. Marrying the road stage to the grandiose was all the time the Pet Store Boys’ MO from the beginning, and over forty years into the profession, ‘Nonetheless’ is the chic sound of pop’s standard-bearers persevering with to hone their craft.
Particulars
- Launch date: April 26, 2024
- Document label: Parlophone
