When I first got into the Pet Shop Boys a little over a decade ago, I assumed they had broad appeal and all my contemporaries would embrace their witty electropop with the same level of enthusiasm I had. It was pretty sobering to realize this was not the case. The majority of my suburban teen peers detested the production and found the whole thing a bit “gay”. Not a lot has changed these days. The Pet Shop Boys are still regularly releasing albums with single-word titles and they are still very much a love ‘em or hate ‘em band. I am very much in the former category.

Yes, The Boy’s tenth album is Pet Shop Boys by the numbers. Whether or not that’s an endorsement or an indictment depends on how you felt about the last nine albums. Like most of their recent output, there are some tedious moments, but the good outweighs the bad. Tennant and Lowe are in fine form.