Brace yourselves - it's the new wave of Bis Being Brilliant! 'Return To Central' leaves 1999's pretty good 'Social Dancing' in the spacedust and will wee all over 90% of other pop (and probably dance) albums released in 2002. They might once have been discarded as the Barney The Dinosaurs of pop, but now they're on Button fucking Moon.
Nothing is wasted - for its entire hour-long duration it remains sleek and linear, with pristine harmonies and skilful tunesmithery. The songs are about bitterness but don't sound born of it - once that leaks like battery acid into your pop songs you've had it (hello Laptop). It's dark around the edges, streaked with mournfulness. The poignancy that ferments in all synth pop is finally oozing to their surface. 'Chicago' (which starts off like Orbital, ferchrissakes) is their own 'How Soon Is Now?', an ode to the abject misery of nightclubbing ("no I'm not on my own, I am waiting for someone"). Their lyrics are still simplistic and squeezed to fit the lines, but with added swooping vocal hooks and a startling new ability to pare things down. The pulsing 'A Portrait From Space' is as beautiful as anything by any band you love, and it only has six words in it. The unbridled rocket synths of single 'The End Starts Today' sound like the moment of clarity on an otherwise totally disorientating fairground ride. And Amanda MacKinnon is no longer Manda Rin - the squeak is dead, in its place a thoughtful, silky Scots peep.
Bis' range has exploded out at all ends and now you can watch the fireworks, sparkler in hand, wrapped up against the cold of cynicism. It's dense and rich and sombre and proud. Who'da thunk it? It's magnificent.
Sarah Bee
