When you’ve been in the business over four decades any truth is most likely to be your own, hence the Pet Shop Boys Neil Tennant has more than enough license to be able to declare the duo’s fifteenth album their “queer” one, whilst at the same time subjectively having a gentle pop at Taylor Swift‘s perceived lack of an imperial phase.
If 2020’s Hotspot charmed but ultimately felt like a dinner date with seperate cab rides home, it’s successor has appreciably more warmth and humour. Having snagged producer James Ford in salute to his work in chintzing the Arctic Monkeys, on Nonetheless he brought the strings, whilst Tennant and Lowe brought a collection of songs long on nostalgia and pop – with a big ‘P’ – sensibilities.
Consciously seqeuncing bangers with ballads – and in the case of The Schlager Hit Parade, no little cheese – Nonetheless has in the darkened club vibing Loneliness one of their finest opening numbers since the Tube needed a ticket, whilst the louche A New Bohemia channels Burt Bacharach handsomely. Subtly political, the meta of New Order-esque Bullet For Narcissus is that of an oligarch’s bodyguard, whilst the Dancing Star in question is a defecting Rudolf Nureyev.
The album’s best moment though is a more personal one, New London Boy cataloguing Tennant’s adventures in seventies glam rock London having escaped from a life on Tyneside which he declares even when it was still closeted ‘already that’s pretty queer.” When you’ve been in the business for more than four decades you’re allowed plenty of space to reminisce – and Nonetheless is the soundtrack to a musical diary that few except the Pet Shop Boys could pull off so enjoyably.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 
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