ABC - The Lexicon Of Love II

The penultimate of the romantics. Martin Fry has caught off guard both longtime fans and everyone who, over the last thirty-four years, has leafed again and again through his precious and unforgettable New Pop "dictionary", and who at some point stopped, confused by works that too abruptly changed the rules of the game (will we ever manage, one day, to rehabilitate that "Beauty Stab", which according to Simon Reynolds is "one of the most suicidal records in pop history"?), or by the defections (Abc going from band to duo down to a mere moniker), or simply by trends that change fast and by how late the blond singer has sometimes shown up to the party (there's little worth saving in the house-fuelled hangover of "Up", though Style Council managed to do even worse with a record rejected by Polydor and released several years later, just for completists). Few noticed "Skyscraping" or "Traffic" – the latter featuring Gary Langan again after many years – but Fry is a man who bounces back fast. After throwing the public a few small snacks to keep their appetite in check (an unusual, eightiesified cover of Radiohead's "High And Dry" for a various-artists compilation, and a track for the soundtrack of "Eddie The Eagle" – a project by Gary Barlow of Take That featuring a cast including Howard Jones, Midge Ure, Marc Almond and other old acquaintances, titled "Living Inside My Heart") came the announcement of a sequel to "The Lexicon Of Love". That record, just to be clear. The one produced by Trevor Horn, with Art Of Noise (who didn't even exist yet), the strings, the keyboards, the great songs, the chic funk, the glittering pop, the sharp and extraordinarily inspired lyrics, and that cover art...

Giving birth to a sequel after so many years is usually extremely risky. It's not enough to throw in nods to the sounds and classics of bygone days if the material doesn't measure up – Jean-Michel Jarre's "Oxygene 7-13", the never-ending saga of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells", the controversial "Night And Day II" by Joe Jackson, but also the follow-up to the story of Elton John's "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" included in "Reg Strikes Back" – nor is it enough to simply phone up Barry Gibb after twenty-five years (isn't that right, Barbra Streisand?), especially if you then forget that records need not only to be recorded, but also promoted. And if you go so far as to reuse the title of a bestseller just to palm off on the public some dance tat that already reeked of mothballs the day it came out (Chris Rea's "The Road To Hell: Part 2" was a con, pure and simple), that's the end of it. Well, luckily "The Lexicon Of Love II" has nothing to do with the cases just mentioned.

While it doesn't reach the heights of the imposing "volume one", it represents an elegant summa (as ever) of the Fry philosophy, with Anne Dudley conducting the orchestra, drawing here and there from a story that didn't come to a halt in that glorious 1982. Eight brand-new tracks chosen out of forty ready for the operation, two improved remakes of songs never before included on an LP except as bonus tracks on reissues ("Viva Love" and "Kiss Me Goodbye", found on a reissue of the unlucky "Abracadabra", at times anticipating the Nineties soul-dance of M People and Lighthouse Family), and a reprise – all of them mirroring a man who has grown up, who now looks at love and its complications with irrevocably different eyes.

Martin seems to prefer standing on the sidelines, watching young couples and seeing his own younger self again in "Viva Love" (the swaggering video explicitly recalls "Poison Arrow"); he reflects on fame that comes and goes just as quickly (is the brilliant "Singer Not The Song" the new "4 Ever 2 Gether"?), and doesn't give up the effective weapon of storytelling (there's quite a bit of "S.O.S." to be heard in "The Ship Of The Seasick Sailor"). The artist's voice has aged remarkably well, intimate when the moment calls for it and energetic, vivid in the more rhythmic, impactful moments, even without ever again reaching the high notes of the Eighties.

There are more ballads than usual on this new record: "Ten Below Zero" is perhaps the only one that sounds dated and a touch lightweight (though if you like "Ocean Blue", there's a real chance you'll fall for this niece of hers too), while both "Confessions Of A Fool" (its gait recalling "King Without A Crown", from "Alphabet City") and, above all, the updated version of "Kiss Me Goodbye" win you over – a song that deserved a second chance, and here it gets one, treated à la Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra, lush but never overdone. A classy slice of soul-pop that paves the way for the bustling "I Believe In Love" (a keyboard-driven rock number, perhaps the only real link back to the "Skyscraping" era) and the minuet of "The Love Inside The Love", the soundtrack to a film that materializes before us the moment we close our eyes.

Abc has for some time now simply been the banner under which Martin Fry operates alone, and here he has called in collaborators such as Charlie Mole (who has worked with Kylie Minogue and Chaka Khan), Marcus Vere (Living in a Box) and Rob Fusari (Destiny's Child, Lady Gaga) as co-writers alongside the man himself and Anne Dudley, drummer Richard Brook (who played with Annie Lennox on "Nostalgia"), keyboardist Peter Gordeno, who has accompanied Depeche Mode on their most recent tours, and Gary Stevenson, who in the past produced records for Rick Astley, Go West and Tony Hadley – the latter a fellow traveller through countless shows celebrating nostalgia for a golden decade, touring the world – and who here stands in for the great absentee, the ever-busy Horn.

"The Lexicon Of Love II" is pop music from another time, never crude, always purposeful, despite its familiarity and its return to well-trodden paths. Martin Fry can afford it, after all: he wanted to carry the story forward, and he did so by writing fine songs. Was it needed? Yes. And it's worth understanding why: however much the old hits might serve as a lifeline for yet another revival, we don't stay twenty- or thirty-somethings for our whole lives. And when the result is a record that works, one we can even listen to right after (or right before) the superb debut without any serious drop in quality, it's clear that savvy alone can't be the whole story.

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20/08/2016