Pet Shop Boys - Release

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Music reviews of Release

Music Review: Good songs, badly "Marred" by dated rock production
Rating: 4 Stars

1. Superb power pop with witty ironic lyrics, best seen on one career highpoint, the album Very.
2. Hypnotic melancholia, with Sondheimesque lyrics, best seen on the other career highpoint, Behaviour.
3. Pumping dance tracks, found on a number of the single remixes, Introspective, and Disco 2, which benefits from the impact of dance genius Danny Tenaglia.

Albums subsequent to Very are commonly seen to have struggled to reach those standards. Bilingual seemed to ape past successes without a strong sense of inspiration, regardless of how catchy Red Letter Day might be. Nightlife was more adventurous, and more successful. It had a theatricality, paralleling the Pet Shop Boys musical Closer to Heaven, yet never quite takes off.

On Release, the Pet Shop Boys work again with Johnny Marr to produce a "rockier" piece. Sadly it is not a form that plays to their strengths. Whilst they still prove to be great song writers, the first half of the album is so badly scarred by misconceived production you almost abandon hope before the second half arrives. And there you find an album as good as any they have done, a sort of romantic, more optimistic version of Behaviour. The Boys needed to work with some of the newer talents on the scene, Deep Dish, Air, Kruder and Dorfmeister.

The opening track, and first single Home and Dry is a subtle, yet ultimately catchy piece. It bodes well, but its strongest musical qualities lurk in some of the riffs you hear emerging at the conclusion of the song, and developed well in the trance remix. This would have been a far more fertile direction for the Boys to explore, and more in synch with where the cutting edge is today.

The second track, and second single, I Get Along, is catchy but the musical arrangement can only be described as a disaster. Here the Pet Shop Boys sound like a poor copy of Oasis, doing a poor imitation of the Beatles. Not only is it derivative, worse still, it is dated. It does not play to the Pet Shop Boys talents, or to the commercial realities of the "now" sound. Listening to the album one begins to wonder if the Pet Shop Boys have lost the plot, or has working so closely with Johnny Marr, ex the Smiths and Electronic, proved a retrograde step.

Then the rot really sets in. Birthday Boy is totally wrecked by the same stale pseudo rock production. If you cut through that it is a good song, harking back to Behaviour. It starts overproduced, and then you get the guitar solo. It reminded me of those appalling moments when the Carpenters would throw in guitar solos in their later songs, trying to make their sound harder, as in Goodbye to Love. I love great guitar based rock. This is not it. A good song is wrecked, and Release as an album hits an iceberg.

Contrary to other reviewers, on London, works. Here the Marr guitar sound is reminiscent of his stronger moments working in Electronic. It has an innocence consistent with the Pet Shop Boys pop sound. The song is catchy, lyrics are intriguing, reminiscent of The Theatre on Very. Interestingly it is the only track not produced by the Boys themselves.

And again contrary to other reviewers, E-Mail does not work. Whilst musically it is catchy it fails where Pet Shop Boys songs so rarely fail, in its lyrics. They are so cliché I sat cringing. It's the internet version of one of Stevie Wonders most compromised moments, I Just Called To Say, I Love You.

And then the album finally takes off. What a shame about the early scarring.

The Samurai in Autumn is a rare but effective harder moment on the album, with hypnotic PSB synthesiser riffs.

Love is a Catastrophe is almost overwhelmed by heavy guitar work, but thank god, survives. Tennant is at his best, singing about being alone and depressed, in his signature bedsit voice.

Here is very catchy pop with the understatement heard on Home and Dry.

The Night I Fell In Love captures what is strongest on this album, the delicacy of Behaviour, with a more optimistic voice, and less grandiosity. It feels musically halfway between two of the Pet Shop Boys greatest songs, Liberation, and Being Boring. Wonderful.

And then on You Choose we get a fitting poignant send off.

It is sad to think how great this album would have been if only it had been handed over to the right external producer. I ache to hear such a remix.

Description of Release

Alternative Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Dance & Electronic
• World Music
• Pop
• Rock