“The Pet Shop Boys are in pop, but not of it.” So snootily declared former Smash Hits editor turned multimillion-selling musician Neil Tennant back in 1994. Given that this affirmatively titled tenth studio album – their first since 2006’s Fundamental – was produced by Brian Higgins and the Xenomania team, Tennant and his fellow PSB Chris Lowe have now obviously decided that resistance is futile. For truly, you can’t get more “of” pop music these days than by working with Xenomania.
To the uninitiated, Higgins and co are the hit production crew behind the stellar careers of Girls Aloud, Sugababes and Gabriella Cilmi, amongst others. Three of the eleven tracks featured here were co-writes between the PSB and Xenomania. No bad thing, either.
Album opener ‘Love Etc’ (also the first single) is the first of these co-writes. On their website the band describe it as “a post life-style anthem which sounds like nothing we’ve ever done before.” I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it’s a slightly eerie stick-in-the-brain electropop number that seems to be taking a dig at the likes of Paris Hilton and her irksome ilk: “(Don’t have to be) A big bucks Hollywood star/(Don’t have to drive) A super car to get far/(Don’t have to live) A life of power and wealth/(Don’t have to be) Beautiful but it helps/(Don’t have to buy) A house in Beverly Hills/(Don’t have to have) Your daddy paying the bills.”
The Trevor Horn-ish ‘All Over The World’ follows, and then it’s the violin-tinged ‘Beautiful People’ (orchestrated by Owen Pallett of Last Shadow Puppets fame).
The hi-energy ‘Did You See Me Coming’ seems destined to be a dancefloor hit. “You don’t have to be in Who’s Who/ to know what’s what,” Tennant declares (later he reverse sings, “You don’t have to know what’s what/to know who’s who”).
Although they’ve been around for more than a quarter century, Tennant and Lowe (the Gilbert & George of the UK pop scene) have somehow always avoided becoming tabloid fodder, so it’s hard to know if Tennant is singing about himself on the theatrically intriguing ‘Vulnerable’. It’s about the difficulties of living with fame and containing your inner anger and turmoil: “It’s not easy by the by/just surviving in the public eye.”
Johnny Marr strums guitar on the next track, ‘More Than A Dream’ (the second Xenomania co-write). Despite his involvement, though, it’s more of an uplifting house track than anything else.
Even if the rest of the album was utterly crap, it’d still be worth buying by the halfway mark. However, things just get better and better (most especially on the classic sounding ‘Pandemonium’ and LCD Soundsystem-esque ‘The Way It Used To Be’).
It’s the final track that really wins the day, though. Six minutes and 20 seconds long, ‘Legacy’ is like the Pet Shop Boys version of ‘Dry Your Eyes, Mate’ – a beautifully compassionate comforter for the broken-hearted: “That’s it, the end/but you’ll get over it, my friend.”
All told, this is easily the best work the Pet Shop Boys have done in years. Positivity; have you had your plus-sign today? Yes!!

Key Track: 'LEGACY'