"social commentary you can dance to"

Cubism, the Pet Shop Boys sixth concert film, accurately documents one night on the recent tour. Similar in almost every respect to the show currently touring the UK (barring a couple of songs that have been rotated through the set), "Cubism" is well, it’s the obligatory live album with pictures. And what pictures.

Around the excellent soundtrack, dancers move and groove, backing vocalists preen, mock and croon, people in Mexico dance out of time and dress up, and a giant cube acts as screen, set, stage and focus for the show. A set of specially shot films (sadly not available in their own right) accompany the visual display with some gravitas and no little wit, setting the scene for a selection of some of the finest pop of all time.

Musically, you probably know what you are going to get : a collection of some of the greatest songs ever written, from Britains most successful duo of all time, that tie in with the universal themes of all great pop : the desire for the promised land, the need to run and hide and tear down the walls, coalesced with the other eternal quest of all music : the search for the perfect song. These 25 songs are attempts to find just that - and sometimes they come damn close. The opening section of the show focuses on big songs ("Left To My Own Devices", the pointed "I'm With Stupid" and the epic "Can You Forgive Her?") cross socio-political commentary with insightful, human tales of love, loss, and general disenchantment.

As the cube rotates and moves to become a giant Kraftwerkian panorama, the soundtrack moves to a set of songs (and a staging) most reminiscent of the epic 1989 shows : "Minimal" moves seamlessly into "Shopping", and "Rent", "Heart", "Opportunities" and "Integral" to clearly show that some common themese tie between the Pet Shop Boys of 1987 and that of 2007. Who would have thought they would've remained a vital force and carved a niche in culture when they were a mere young pop band of Thatcher's Britain? Perhaps its because now Britains resembles the Authoritarian air of the late 80's that some of these songs are not dated, but prescient and timely.

The Extras are barely worth a mention : the commentary is largely silent as the band watch the film for the first time, and the barely and rarely interject over the original track. The 'documentary' largely consists of interviews with fans who seem to reference "The Eighties" with every other sentence and paint the band as a nostalgia act of no use in 2007. Quite odd considering the band themselves refuse to appear on "I Love The Eighties". Surely they could have interviewed someone with something interesting to say?

As a live greatest hits, "Cubism" aptly dispatches itself with no small panache. Thankfully, it also shares little common ground with last years "Concrete" live album, with 19 songs not appearing on that (out of a total of 25).  Whilst there is a reliance in some way on earlier material from The Eighties, the Pet Shop Boys are trying hard not to be a nostalgia act (even though the 1997-2005 years are represented with just two songs from those six albums) : the new album is represented in spades, and the songs chosen from their past reflect a microcosm of the band's ethos : social commentary you can dance to.

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