A very smooth house beat, electronic driven, offers a sophisticated, defined "Pet Shop Boys." Most of the beats are a steady warmth of drift with almost feminine (considering their male origin) vocals, dripping in echo and teased with a raver mentality in the more driving tempos.

The spoken, almost slight hint of dry rap delivered passages in "Happiness Is An Option," backed by some soul sounding female backups, is a divergence in approach and does the work of breaking up the formula, even if the track isn't that noticeable. All of this has a certain watered down easiness, and throws nothing in the way of progressive for a band that was doing intelligent soft electronica before there was even such a word.

The bouncier numbers, the happy club stomp of "Closer To Heaven," and the shuffle of "I Don't Know What You Want, But I Can't Give It Any More," offer whatever spark the "Pet Shop Boys" have, while the rest is almost offensively sterile electronic wank and whine.

"Vampires" has a cool refrain, "You're a Vampire, I'm a Vampire too" and has a catchy lyrical structure and subtle building progressions laced with the usual amalgam of electronic noises that are the crutch for "Pet Shop Boys" to be "creatively original," but at best succeed in making lukewarm, radio friendly, but lacking in enough easy hook to actually get play, electronic music.

"Nightlife" is somewhat pretty and shows its heart often, but the genre offers a much more commanding dynamic than the "Pet Shop Boys" offer here, so explore this only if you're familiar and thirsty, because this does not satisfy on the levels intended.