Secrets

Secrets

"Love me well or love me badly / Do you have to love me madly?" Huh? A couplet like that could only have come from the aptly named Human League (or perhaps the extremely deadpan New Order). Their eighth album, <I>Secrets</I>, never quite reaches the heights of its first two songs, "All I Ever Wanted" and "Love Me Madly?"--though, for better or worse, its lyrics do get more coherent. At the same time, its remarkably consistent pop pleasures arrive at just the right time. Fitting, really, for a group that since 1981's <I>Dare</I> has been forward-looking but not <I>too</I>. <p> <I>Secrets</I> boasts beats and textures updated for modern clubgoers while hewing tenaciously to the League's own bright aesthetic. From stabs at <I>Dare</I>-style glory ("All I Ever Wanted") to music to do the funky robot to ("The Snake," "Reflections"), fully indulging the blend of Philip Oakey's stentorian tones and the slightly wavering voices of Joanne Catherall and Susan Gayle, this is an ecstatic celebration of new, old, kitsch, and emotion. Can anyone deny them justice--in other words, a commission for the next <I>Austin Powers</I> flick? <I>--Rickey Wright</I>