Release - Pet Shop Boys > Reviews > Pet Shop Boys - Release - their new sound.

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Good
Value for Money

Advantages:	Different sounds, more melodic .
Disadvantages:	Less dancy, slower .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

A pun was definitely called for in the title of this article, no doubt about it. Pet Shop Boys started off in 1981 and released their first album in 1985, called Please so that people could enter a record shop and ask, "can I have the new Pet Shop Boys album, please."

Back then, they were pioneers of a type of music which laid melancholic lyrics with ethereal melodies upon proficiently produced hi-NRG dance music. The result was uplifting, thoughtful and deep music to get lost in.

From there, Pet Shop Boys have produced a house album: Introspective, sunk deep with the beautiful Behaviour album, shot up to the happy/dizzy heights of Very, gone latin with Bilingual and dark and dingy with Nightlife.

Their new album, Release will serve to reiterate a message Pet Shop Boys have been sending out since the start: They will not be labelled. They may always use synths, but they're not synthesiser purists, and have often employed real drummers, real orchestras and real guitars.

Release has 10 tracks, only two of these do not feature guitars. The album opens with Home and dry. This was the track released to advertise the album and is a track about longing for your lover to return from business across the Atlantic. Based around a catchy synth refrain, it's a very infectious song and very easy to relate to.

I get along is the second track and the second single. It portrays a story based on the goings on between UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair and the former Foreign Secretary, Peter Mandelson, but it has been tweaked to make more a love story. The music is very Oasis and as infectious as the common cold, a good choice for a single.

The next track, Birthday boy, compares the likes of Stephen Lawrence, the UK black teenager beaten to death and Matthew Sheppard, the US gay college student murdered by homophobes, with Christ, for they died for our sins. A truly beautiful song with a pleasing melody and a touching theme.

London tells of refugees arriving in the aforementioned city, trying to live their lives. This is more upbeat a track and has more to get your teeth into. The synth influence is more prevalent in this track and they have put the pitch machine to good use.

We all remember Believe by Cher? Of course. This vocal effect has been going strong since that song bought it into the limelight and Pet Shop Boys have applied it a few times throughout this album, but thankfully not to excess. It appears in Home and dry, London and Here and is used both subtly and effectively.

E-mail is one of the less strong tracks, the story is thin and the theme is thoroughly worn out by the end of the track. Still, this song is a sweet one, telling of a lover who misses their partner (again abroad) and is hoping for an E-mail that says 'I love you.'

Chris Lowe is the Pet Shop Boys' resident knob twiddler and he is given a free reign here in the fastest, most dancy track on the album: The Samurai in Autumn. This track thumps along, whilst drifting strings support Neil Tennant's ethereal vocals which repeatedly claim, 'It's not as easy as it was/or as difficult as it could be/for the Samurai in Autumn.'

Following a Lowe driven high, the album takes a drastic turn for a Tennant driven low: Love is a catastrophe is one of the darkest songs to be created outside the boundaries of death metal music. A true rock ballad, Neil's hopeless vocals wander through the continually building gloom like a lost child in a storm and at the end the calm ensues and Neil resigns himself to defeat: Now I know at last/for me/Love is a catastrophe.

Here the track which I believe to conform most to the Pet Shop Boys' sound. It has a strong beat - although it is slower than most other tracks, a fine set of lyrics and a very memorable chorus. The song is sung from the point of view of someone telling a close friend or relative, maybe a lover, that they have a home and that they are welcome there, they will be supported. Here is too short to get into and I feel that Neil Tennant may well have run out of ideas for lyrics, which is unfortunate. The synth lines sound a little sloppy and the song is slightly spikier than other Pet Shop Boys productions, however it is still a very good, strong song.

Eminem has always been known for his homophobic view points and the next song, The night I fell in love, is his punishment. The music is as middle-of-the-road as E-mail and has no chorus to speak of. It would be a definite low of the album if it wasn't for the defiantly cheeky lyrics that take a male fan of Eminem backstage to meet the rap star. It follows that they make love and wake up the following morning, have breakfast together, joking about Dr. Dre. The singer of the song then states that he thought the whole experience was cool; he was already late for school...

You choose is a song that I found boring and I didn't agree with the lyrics. Mr. Tennant tells me that I don't fall in love by chance, I choose. I feel fate plays a bigger part and Neil himself sings "Fate laughs: look what we've done to him!" in Love is a catastrophe, so this song, for me, is the weakest part of the album. A pleasant melody is all I find to save it from being skipped.

The album was released (there it is again) with four different packaging designs. They are highly collectable and look really good, especially for such an obvious marketing ploy.

All in all, I feel the album is very beautiful with more detail on the melodies and lyrics. The added interest in guitars takes the music in a different direction and it's an interesting departure. The result is an accomplished rock sound without the cheese of most rock acts. I am, however, glad that Pet Shop Boys have announced a return to their energy-packed pop roots because this is a very 'down' album, very contemplative and sounds very personal. Catharsis only works for a while; I would welcome an album of catchy synth-lines, thumping bass and positive, anthemic lyrics.