Pet Shop Boys: Elysium (2012)

(astralwerks)

!! CAUTION !!

Yeouch, that hurts. This is one of my favorite bands ever -- it depresses me to say a bad word about anything they've done. So we'll get it over with quickly. This is a bit of an embarrassment and a huge misstep for Tennant and Lowe after the exquisite Yes; slow-paced, dirgey, undistinguished in composition and performance, poorly and unenthusiastically sung, and far too enamored of its own cute cleverness -- mocking other artists' feckless reachings for the past but guilty of the same exact thing itself. "Ego Music" is a bit like a poor man's "Yesterday, When I Was Mad," which was already a slight dilution of "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" which had evolved from "Hit Music"; one suspects it made the album because the duo still regrets leaving the similarly themed but vastly superior "Shameless" off Very.

It otherwise doesn't sink that low; not quite, but close -- the incomprehensible Handel nod "Hold On" would be a b-side at best in non-lean PSB years. The large problem is not so much that Elysium is over the top and bad as that it's just barely even there and surprisingly dull. PSB once revolutionized the idea of adult contemporary pop on their all-time peak, Behavior; now they attempt to enliven a watered-down dreamy krautrock and end up with subterranean atmospherics that make Fleet Foxes sound positively lively.

The record begins and closes competently; "Leaving" sounds about exactly how you'd expect Pet Shop Boys to sound in 2012, which is sort-of a compliment, and closer "Requiem in Denim and Leopardskin" livens things up with its ambitiously moody lounge-beat, sounding sort of like something you'd hear in The Limited, which is also sort-of a compliment. The entire remainder of the first half snoozes ineffectively save the slightly danceable "A Face Like That," which makes up the difference with a good injection of pop-stupid. The more upbeat second half is harder to ignore in its overreach, though you can detect some of the latent charm in "Give It a Go," and the dumbness of "Memory of the Future" at least sounds like a less lazy put-on. But what on earth is the story with Tennant's weird monosyllabic pronunciation throughout the LP, especially on "Everything Means Something"? This over-enunciation was Michael Stipe's great experiment roundabout 1998, and we all know how that turned out.

I dunno. I'm inarticulate about this. Few things get me more wound up than the announcement of new Pet Shop Boys, especially because it tends to be a blindsiding surprise I discover some months after the fact, given that the group has few fans Stateside. Every time I write them off (as I did after Fundamental, and to a lesser extent Nightlife), they come back swinging. I hope this is no exception. And please don't let a stupid review like this turn you away from them. I just didn't like this particular goround of theirs; I'll cheer up soon enough.

[SEE ALSO:]
Yes (2009)