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Pet Shop Boys: Nonetheless review – a great, fan-pleasing album
The duo’s first LP in four years finds them refining and updating their late-80s heyday sound, with a new producer in tow
For those who wish the pair’s albums came with a reading list concealed inside a clutch of club flyers, there’s Dancing Star, a lovely three-minute biopic of Rudolf Nureyev – the Russian joining the vast dinner party of historical figures, including Casanova, Debussy, Hitler and the Queen, featured elsewhere in Neil Tennant’s lyrics. Tennant specialises in the sort of pithy storytelling that’d make him an excellent people’s laureate, and New London Boy, about his glam rock adolescence, is gloriously affecting. The Schlager Hit Parade is a miss, lacking the pensive uncertainty the duo excel at, but it’s a rare flop.
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