★★★★★
"Turn it up," recommends Neil Tennant, pulsating opener Axis igniting seconds later. His first words describe the underlying ethos of Electric, Pet Shop Boys' twelfth studio album: a relentless dance-fuelled affair that defies the direction of its predecessor. It's a new era in more ways than one, Pet Shop Boys' twenty-eight year relationship with Parlophone drawing to a close...
- www.beat.com.au
2013-08-09
★★★★★
Pet Shop Boys follow up last year's excellent 'Elysium' with surprising, possibly undue haste. This may be because 'Electric' launches their new x2 label after nearly three decades on EMI, or it may be because the lush, LA easy listening of 'Elysium' was especially atypical. 'Electric' is its opposite, a bangin' Euro-disco outing created with Stuart Price and boasting, in the fabulous 'Love Is A Bourgeois Construct', as good a song as PSB have ever written...
- www.mixmag.net
2013-08-02
★★★★★
After the calm of Elysium comes the storm of Electric . The second album in 10 months from Pet Shop Boys couldn't be more different to its predecessor. While Elysium contemplated aging, love, and death with a relatively quiet passion, Electric captures the UK duo in full-on dance mode. The new album, produced by coveted British Mixmaster, Stuart Price, includes a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "The Last To Die" alongside eight new PSB songs where the accent is positive and melancholy is...
- consequenceofsound.net
2013-07-24
★★★★★
The opening minute of the Pet Shop Boys' twelfth studio album feels like the calm before the storm. It's a patient, breath-catching moment that gives way to one of their most dynamic arrangements in years, but only when it's good and ready to do so. Where last year's Elysium was low-fi and ultimately scattershot, Electric strategically provides welcome adrenaline. It doesn't take a genius to declare that the current state of pop music is, to say the least, troublesome...
- www.state.ie
2013-07-23
★★★★★
8
Critical Mass
Release Date: July 16, 2013Label: x2
Being boring suits Pet Shop Boys as poorly as Bruce Springsteen covering one of their songs. Fortunately, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have addressed the former problem and reversed the latter hypothetical...
- www.spin.com
2013-07-24
★★★★★
Last September's weary, autumnal Elysium didn't offer much hope for the future of Pet Shop Boys, so it's a bit of a surprise that they've whipped up its sequel in under a year. (Or, rather, its companion, including some songs they started at the earlier sessions). It'se even more of a surprise that Electric is their most immediate, jubilant record in at least a decade-- a return to a couple of elements of their work that had been lying fallow for too long...
- pitchfork.com
2013-07-23
★★★★★
It's been less than a year since veteran synthpop wizards Pet Shop Boys released their mellow and moody eleventh studio album, Elysium. Having left Parlophone Records after 25 years, they've quickly returned with a brand new album on a brand new label. Produced by Stuart Price (Madonna, The Killers, Scissor Sisters), Electric sounds like the duo's retort to the disappointment expressed by fans and critics about the absence of Pet Shop Boys' signature lively and danceable pop on Elysium...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2013-07-18
★★★★★
Electropop patriarchs Pet Shop Boys have remained a staple of the upper reaches of the Billboard dance/club charts for the last decade. That staying power is a testament to the songwriting prowess of the duo--arch vocalist Neil Tennant and his stoic keyboardist sidekick, Chris Lowe--and the effortless way the pair weaves together futuristic synths, surging beats, and impeccable lyrical bon mots...
- www.avclub.com
2013-07-16
★★★★★
"BANGING". If there's a word that best describes Pet Shop Boys' 12th album it's "BANGING". Possibly with an exclamation mark. Last year's beautifully autumnal yet sadly underrated Elysium may've suggested Neil "Chilly T" Tennant and Chris "Chris" Lowe - both now fiftysomethings - were ready to bide their twilight years in relative tranquillity, their status as "Eccentric National Treasures" assured...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-07-17
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