Pet Shop Boys –
Fundamental (CD)
Sound: B Music:
B
For those who remember The Pet Shop Boys in the 1980s,
many will remember West End Girls, It’s A Sin and a few other
sparse hits. However, the New Wave
Dance duo have survived far beyond their early commercial days and with their
new album Fundamental (2006) have re-teamed with the legendary singer,
songwriter and producer Trevor Horn.
The results are a solid album as fine as any of their past works and the
tracks include:
1) Psychological
2) The
Sodom & Gomorrah Show
3) I Made
My Excuses & Left
4) Minimal
5) Numb
6) God
Willing
7) Luna
Park
8) I’m With
Stupid
9) Casanova
In Hell
10) Twentieth Century
11) Indefinite Leave To Remain
12) Integral
The duo was always smarter than their critics and most of
the general U.S. audience thought them to be and the diehard fans know
better. With Horn, they just have a
chemistry that always works and their most complex and challenging ideas seem
to mesh in such a way that it makes every single track a sonic landscape
without the pretension of New Age music.
Though not a concept album, the music seems to cohere from track to
track, the then precocious duo seeming to having been able to see the world and
world of music just now finally starting to catch up to where they were a few
decades ago. If you though The Pet Shop
Boys were just a singles duo, Fundamental will demonstrate much
more. This is not some retro-80s trip,
but a mature, solid work that makes for one of the best albums so far this
year.
The PCM 2.0 16bit/44.1kHz Stereo is really impressive in
its articulation, typical of the superior productions of Horn. As a matter of fact, the only thing holds
the sound back are the sonic limits of the old CD format itself, making one
imagine a 5.1 DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD mix.
Fans of Horn’s Art Of Noise overseas get to enjoy two of their titles as
5.1 SACDs and we have reviewed the band elsewhere on this site. There is also a booklet with lyrics to all
the songs (for a change) and some tech notes.
- Nicholas Sheffo
