By 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, Rovi