NEIL TENNANT ONCE famously noted that superior pop groups go through an "imperial" phase, where they aquaplane on a plateau of commercial and artistic excellence. Then, suddenly, it stops and decline sets in to a stomach-turning point where it seems the only way up is a Comic Relief single.

Since Pet Shop Boys' own imperial rule, they've made an especially wretched Comic Relief single; a joyless cover of Somewhere; a B-sides compilation; the relatively undistinguished Bilingual album and have carelessly succumbed to the lure of the festival circuit. Incredibly though, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, after resting for what seems like years, have dusted themselves down and returned with - that cheapest of phrases, but it's apposite here - their best album. Their time may have gone, but if Pet Shop Boys are sinking, they're putting up a hell of a fight.

Nightlife comprises 12 sprightly, sensitive, elegiac songs, loosely based around the title. Radiophonic is a quick-on-its-feet Kraftwerk homage, The Only One, lovingly orchestrated by Craig Armstrong, shows they're still masters of dreamscapes and I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Anymore is as good as its title. But, as The Carpenters so sweetly put it, we've only just begun.

Standout tracks
New York City Boy
You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk
Happiness Is An Option

New York City Boy is the gayest song ever recorded: it'll probably see even Liam Gallagher having second thoughts and looking to his feminine side. It features a thumping, fist-shaking, vest-wearing, deep-voiced chorus (Tennant hovers in the background and does the verses) that always seems likely to break into YMCA.

Hazell Dean would cover it if she was still going. Happiness Is An Option and You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk are peak Pet Shop Boys. Intense and beautiful - whisper it soft: although Tennant and Lowe might have been wry, their songs have never ever been -they're both built around near-classical choruses. They have touches of near-genius: the opening swell of the former where backing singer Sylvia Mason-James can't wait to burst into the chorus; BJ Cole's moving pedal steel solo on the latter, which fits snugly into Pet Shop Boys and their ways.

Mason-James might have been a better bet for the In Denial duet, where poor, hopeless Kylie Minogue sounds, as ever, as if she's been confronted with the English language for the first time and Boy Strange is rather sloppy, but these are minor blemishes in what is a perplexingly wondrous renaissance. What did they do during their holidays? **** John Aiziewood

This interview was published in the November 1999 issue of Q Magazine.