Pet shop boys have become an institution. The quintessential '80s act, Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant have stuck to their guns and refused to defer to passing '90s fads. Where their peers would have gone trip-hop by now, Lowe and Tennant have stayed true to the disco-pop sensibility that made them a defining voice of the last decade.

The reason Pet Shop Boys have endured is that their robotic beats, campy choral arrangements and sampled, stabbing orchestration are underpinned by a deep melancholy, the special pathos of gay culture in the age of AIDS. There is an ironic sadness at work in the crisp couplets and clipped vowels of Tennant, who still sings like a foppish Al Stewart. This is the wistful, diffident intelligence of the outsider staying one step removed from a sexual melee into which he would secretly like to plunge.

On Bilingual, Pet Shop Boys can't quite make up their minds whether to sing in English or in an exotic Spanglish. Is the album about low-key ruminations on love set against a London backdrop ("Such a cold winter/With scenes as slow as Pinter," from "Up Against It"), or is it about the summery Euro-pop vibe charging "Se a Vida É (That's the Way Life Is)" and "Discotecca"? Ultimately, Bilingual is part clouds and part sunshine, with wry self-portrayals such as "Metamorphosis" (which evokes the Ovidian dream of emerging adolescent homosexuality) to leaven the mix. If there's nothing here as heartbreaking as "Young Offender," from the 1993 album Very, the gorgeous "To Step Aside" comes pretty close.

Tennant and Lowe certainly haven't lost their sense of humor. "It's the greatest show with the best effects/Since Disco-Tex and the Sexelettes!" Tennant raves in "Electricity." Get Bilingual. Then get dancin'! (RS 746)

BARNEY HOSKYNS