Reuniting the duo once again with Trevor Horn, Fundamental is a confident affirmation of the PSBs' musical strengths. The result may be the very best album of their career, a mature and considered work which satisfies head, heart and feet simultaneously.  Full text...

Fundamental? It's essential.  Full text...

This is their Best Album Since Very.   Full text...

'Fundamental', as the title suggests, highlights a return to what Pet Shop Boys do best - arch and glacial electronic pop music.  Full text...

Fundamental is an album that begs us to look beyond the surface of things, to the impulses that inspired them, to the results they've wrought, to the elements that make them up, and finally, to what they mean. Fittingly, its own surface is rather deceptive, an alternately orgasmic and slow-burning chameleon that threatens to charm and/or horrify at the start of each new verse.  Full text...

Take a bow, Boys – and welcome back  Full text...

A new record by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe is cause for excitement and celebration in itself, but when legendary pop producer Trevor Horn is on board - for the first time since 1988 - too, seventh heaven surely beckons. But Fundamental is absolutely not a throwback. Rather, this is a record that could only have been made now, and has 2006 stamped all over it.  Full text...

Not for the first time during Fundamental, you listen wondering who else in pop music would do something like this. And not for the first time, the answer comes back: nobody.  Full text...

But forget everything; as far as classics go, this album is all about final track "Integral". Blistering its way through 4 minutes of power pop, this is PSB returning to their finest, with punching choruses and breakdowns aplenty.   Full text...

Fundamental is actually a reference to the religious fundamentalism that led to 9/11 and the war on terror. And this dozen-track disc is a thought-provoking examination of its consequences and effects, with Tennant and Lowe using global issues as metaphors for personal tales -- and setting them to irresistibly groovy backdrops.  Full text...

A return to form, or a blast from the past? Who cares when it's this good?  Full text...

"Fundamental" is the sound of the Pet Shop Boys reborn, and mindful of the important role they fill in the pop family - namely, the only songwriters capable of working the word "mandate" into a hedonistic disco track without it having anything whatsoever to do with a romantic rendezvous between two gentlemen.  Full text...

Their electro-disco is back in fashion, which lets them return to, umm, fundamentals: Working again with 1980s star producer Trevor Horn, they make tracks like "Integral" pop with a grandiose synth drama half-worthy of Frankie Goes to Hollywood.  Full text...

The worst that can be said about Fundamental is that it is merely good, and their worst is still better than a lot of bands’ best.  Full text...

It's perfect Pet Shop Boys material, but the lyrics rarely stand out above music seemingly designed for discos catering to middle-aged clubgoers who don't want to move too fast. Trevor Horn, who previously worked with Pet Shop Boys on the 1988 single "Left To My Own Devices," provides characteristically slick production, but there's little to cast light on the gloss, and the political exasperation translates into music that sounds simply exhausted.  Full text...

Continuing to create the same music they have been releasing for years, there's no mistaking this is Pet Shop Boys in every aspect.   Full text...