In pop music, there’s no such phenomenon as a sure thing — except for Kylie. She’s the constant in the equation. One thing you can always count on is the way the dance-floor queen will always step back into our lives with another effortlessly sparkling pop statement in her signature disco style. Fashions come and go, legends rise and fall, yet nothing ever brings Kylie down, and if she makes it all seem impossibly easy, that’s probably because for her it is. All the biggest names in pop would crawl across broken glass to collaborate with her. Her new Tension II is every bit as choice as her 2022 Tension was — and don’t even think about pretending to be surprised. Again, she’s the sure thing.
We all have our favorite Kylie eras — for some, it’s the big-hair Eighties cheese-pop days of “The Locomotion” and “I Should Be So Lucky,” or the post-Y2K flash of Fever and “Can’t Get It Out of My Head.” For a few of us, it all revolves around the underrated 1997 classic Impossible Princess. Even her 2018 country album was disco glitter right down to the floorboards. But Tension was a career peak, with the massive hit “Padam Padam” riding its club throb and quizzical hooks to a whole new level of global Kylie-mania — the so-called “Padamic.” The rest of the album was on the same level, drenched in Eighties Euro-sleaze and moody woke-up-on-a-beach yearning.
Tension II is what happens when the party is refusing to quiet down, the revelers won’t say goodnight, so the DJ/hostess/belle decides to just let the festivities roll on. She knows she’s in the zone, and she’s on one of her periodic hot streaks. “The Tension era has been so special to me,” she explained when she announced the album. “I can’t possibly let it be over yet.” She goes heavy on the “Padam Padam” template, full of her cheeky camp wit and breathy allure over state-of-the-art club beats.
Tension II is nine new songs, plus four previously released collaborations: “My Oh My” with Bebe Rexha and Tove Lo, “Edge of Saturday Night” with the Blessed Madonna, “Dance Alone” with Sia, and the pick to click, “Midnight Ride” with Orville Peck and Diplo. “Good As Gone” is one of her resilient post-breakup anthems in the mode of “I Will Survive,” while “Taboo” goes for emotional salvation on the floor, with Abba-via-Madonna strings, as Kylie hyperventilates herself into a hypnotic trance. “Shoulda Left Ya” is a disarmingly vulnerable synth-pop ballad, all bittersweet regret.
One of the oddities of Kylie’s career is that she’s a woman of so many comebacks, yet she’s never really had a void to come back from, or a fall from grace that’s ever made anyone regret being a Kylie fan. Her albums often get hailed as returns to her disco roots, yet she’s never had the slightest trouble heeding the call of the DJ or the temptation of the dance floor. She’s committed to more of the same on Tension II, as in that wonderful title. (She wouldn’t dream of insulting your intelligence by calling it Release.) She’s the disco Lemmy, knowing exactly what she wants to do and never failing to get it exactly right, by being exactly herself.