Nearly as preposterous as they were fabulous (two cooing girls, one indignant man, blippery), Human League wafted over the top of the '80s new-wave heap with its peculiar blend of chrome pathos and martini futurism. Regardless of its immediate ascent beyond the frills of new romanticism and into your sister's suburban Walkman, nobody ever really expected the group to last. Strangely, that fact alone is not what makes "Secrets" such a supreme indulgence. Packed to the jaded gills with studio craft, Phil Oakey & Co. have somehow made the time-trapped craft of nightclub pessimism engagingly relevant again.
"All I Ever Wanted" drunkenly brims with that tonight-is-forever heart forfeit that used to make your hair stand up, while "Nervous" pounds its staccato flip-out with straight-faced couplets of a dressed-up breakdown. It's all here, with a splash of mo-dernity to make sure you wake up in the morning. Don't you want to, baby?
