Review: Pet Shop Boys - Love etc

"A post-lifestyle anthem which sounds like nothing we've done before" is how Pet Shop Boys describe their new single, Love etc, which is out March 16. No - I don't really know what they mean by that either, but Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe seem like very intelligent chaps indeed, so I'll just nod politely and smile... then get my groove on and dance like a bad mother coz the middle aged men of pop have, along with Xenomania, created a right old proper pop sensation. Whatever tonic these guys have been taking since they were last prodding at the pop charts, well they need to bottle it and sell it to all those other nostalgia-laden comeback wannabees. Maybe it was a session in the studio with the current queens of all who can do wrong - Girls Aloud. The Pet Shoppers provided the ten-legged, cocktail-swigging party machine with their last hit, The Loving Kind, and now it seems Neil and Chris are all warmed up and ready to hog the limelight once again (after donning compulsory shades, silly hat and black patent mattress doubling as coat of course).

Love etc is a nice little bite sized nugget from the new album, Yes, which is promised for March 23 and is described by Neil as "a fantastic, wide-ranging, pop record." Oh good I understand that. They even got Johnny Marr to strum his guitar on a few tracks and Last Shadow Puppets' Owen Pallett to lend a hand to the orchestral arrangements. Oooo get them. It's all indie-electro-pop nowadays isn't it? We're all one big happy, wide-ranging family. How lovely. Well it's very good indeed to have Pet Shop Boys back in this gloomy old recession-hit town, and on the strength of Love etc I reckon they are just the ones to remind us all to party like it's 1985...