Pet Shop Boys might have been making music since the early 1980s, but they’ve just put out an album that comes across as very 2016 without veering too far from their trademark synthpop sound. That’s no mean feat, but it only begins to explain why the British duo have yet again knocked it out of the park.
In a now lengthy tradition, the boys are keeping a finger on the political pulse with the dark “The dictator decides” – while the melancholic observations of “Sad robot world” seem remarkably relevant as technology increasingly takes on roles long left to human hands. Elsewhere, however, there are plenty of tracks in-keeping with lead vocalist Neil Tennant’s claim of a consistently perky album.
We particularly like “Groovy” and “Say it to me” – the kind of vibrant, dance-y froth that we could have imagined Dannii Minogue cranking out in the 1990s. Meanwhile, with “Pazzo!”, the boys almost entirely do away with their usual intelligent commentary and simply ramp up the album’s already high intensity.
Despite the occasional patch of unoriginality, there is plenty of experimental material which could lead many hardened Pet Shop Boys fans to prefer Super to the – itself highly acclaimed – predecessor, 2013’s Electric. Super is now available to purchase for $9.99 from the iTunes Store and to stream from Apple Music.