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" Given the speed with which Electric has come out of the traps after last year&amp;#039;s hit &amp;#039;n&amp;#039; miss Elysium, it&amp;#039;d be tempting to think that Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant had a few sneaky bangers up their sleeves when they dropped their last record off as a parting gift to Parlophone. I don&amp;#039;t buy that. There are plenty of nods towards that aspirational, luxury sound here to suggest that album #12 is a dancey refinement of its predecessor rather than an apology for it. They also seem genuinely hurt by the lukewarm response to their last effort - and this first release on their own x2 label feels like something of a reaction to that. &amp;#039;Axis&amp;#039; jumps off the disc like the shards of an exploding glitterball. An &amp;#039;80s/&amp;#039;00s clubland mini-masterpiece, it&amp;#039;s a storming statement of intent. All pounding synthesised beats and electric energy. With its timeless modernity, it sounds like PSB have rubbed off on producer Stuart Price every bit as much as he has on them. Rather than cribbing from the upstarts, time and again the boys raid their own back catalogue for influences. Despite the up-to-date lyrical references and super-slick sheen, &amp;#039;Love Is A Bourgeois Construct&amp;#039; is as classic Pet Shop Boys as the title suggests. For all the qualities of their pop rivals over the years - from New Order to Hurts - none can sound as simultaneously arch and banging as these two. At times there&amp;#039;s possibly too much dancefloor action. All the vocoder and breakneck scratchy FX can get utterly exhausting. They&amp;#039;re almost too scared to slow down a second in case anyone dare suggest they can&amp;#039;t hack it. So Electric misses some of the melodic finesse of their best work - but those are some ridiculous heights over the last three decades to be jostling with. From Welsh miners&amp;#039; choirs to Tina Turner to Rammstein, Chris and Neil aren&amp;#039;t afraid of an unlikely collaboration, and here we get &amp;#039;Thursday&amp;#039; with the massively-popular-but-not-exactly-hip Example for a Proper Pop Hit moment. They&amp;#039;re also not afraid of an unlikely cover, and Bruce Springsteen&amp;#039;s 2007 track &amp;#039;Last To Die&amp;#039; gets an (in)appropriately Pets makeover. Closer &amp;#039;Vocal&amp;#039; starts as the sort of music critic whinge that ex-Smash Hits man Neil has enjoyed perhaps too much over the last few years (&amp;quot;I like the singer / He&amp;#039;s lonely and strange / Every track has a vocal / And that makes a change&amp;quot;). But instead of slipping into the world of ambient cream sofas and fiddly cocktails like it might have done 10 months ago, all the faders go up to the top, the strobe flicks on to full. The Boys are most definitely back in town.   Tracks to download: &amp;#039;Axis&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Fluorescent&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Thursday&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Vocal&amp;#039; If you like this, you&amp;#039;ll like: New Order, Carl Craig, Juan Atkins Watch the Pet Shop Boys &amp;#039;Axis&amp;#039; music video below:      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/album-reviews/review/a496201/pet-shop-boys-electric-album-review/>