*** Pet Shop Boys

NIGHT LIFE

(London)

Far from their origins as West End guys, urban and lonely in London, Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant now sound dreamy in love and very very Broadway. They're New York City boys now, oddly freaky at times -- in "Vampire" (a deeply coded, Mylene Farmer-like piece of disco gothic), "Boy Strange," and "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk" -- but less odd than formerly. Night Life, in fact, is the most peaceful, contented music they've ever made. Big bosomy melodies, nervy Eurodisco riffs, choruses of female angels, and layers of orchestration ornament Tennant's theatrical singing. And the album's 12 tracks tend less to commonplace insecurities of romantic disconnectedness -- the Pets' signature drama -- than to sweet goodbyes ("I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Anymore"), tender moments ("The Only One"), and storybook endings ("Happiness Is an Option") full of rhythmic sentimentality (for the light beats and string-section scents of classic disco) and a synthesized think-I'm-in-love nostalgia ("Radiophonic," "Closer to Heaven") that doesn't sound bygone at all thanks to Tennant's dry voicing of delirious matter of fact.

-- Michael Freedberg