Home Again

y the end of the '80s, Jimmy Somerville's records with Bronski Beat and the Communards sounded unpleasantly dated and of their time. By 2004, when a new generation of bands were taking Bronski Beat's take on skeletal dance-pop as one of their primary influences, Somerville's Home Again sounds both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and utterly contemporary. Songs like "Under a Lover's Sky" and the lovely ballad title track wouldn't sound out of place on a circa-1984 dancefloor musically, but Somerville's voice is a richer and more complex instrument decades on. He's still capable of one of the most spine-tingling falsettos in pop music history, but Somerville uses his lower register more here, most effectively on the Hi-NRG dance track "C'Mon" and a startling cover of Depeche Mode's "But Not Tonight." Both a sterling comeback album for his '80s fans and a quality introduction for newcomers, Home Again could be Somerville's best record since Bronski Beat's still powerful 1984 debut, The Age of Consent. ~ Stewart Mason|