Album Review: Tension II by Kylie Minogue

Thirty-seven years into an impressive recording métier, her staying power is unmatched. In the last 17 months, Minogue has racked up further critical accolades internationally and cemented her stature as one of the preeminent live performers of her generation. And that's to say nothing of her continued way with a four-on-the-floor rhythm pattern. But as I remarked about this incredible woman last year in my book Record Redux: Kylie Minogue (Second Edition), the singer-songwriter "has always been about sonic exploration and subverting expectations." She is a pop genre dynamo.

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A curious hybrid of deluxe album and EP, the Queen of Pop’s latest complements its predecessor nicely without ever quite overshadowing it Who would have thought that, almost 40 years after she first appeared in the chart, one of the most beloved pop stars of the age would release one of her finest albums? Yet, that’s exactly what Kylie Minogue did last year. At an age when most artists of her generation are joining the nostalgia tour circuit, Kylie released Tension, a smart, fun, bubbly pop album that, thanks to the Tik Tok success of Padam Padam, introduced her to a whole new generation. Tension was obviously a creatively successful period for Minogue as, just over a year later, we have an entire new album from songs recorded in those sessions.

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With Tension II, pop diva Kylie Minogue extends her startingly long run of great-to-brilliant studio albums that started with 2018’s country-flecked Golden. Last year’s Tension is arguably one of the singer’s best efforts, and even if its sequel doesn’t match up, it’s still a fabulous collection of high-energy electropop tunes. It fails to reach the emotional highs of its predecessor, but Tension II still offers listeners frothy, catchy tunes.

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If we've learned one thing from analysing pop culture, it's this: never ever write off Kylie. Ever. The Australian queen's return to chart dominance with 'Padam Padam' was both unexpected and sort of inevitable, with the indefatigable singer well overdue some form of renaissance. And so it proved: Kylie returned to lay waste to the Top 40, with her 'Tension' project quickly following suit.

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If Kylie Minogue's Tension generated its, well, tension from its fluctuations between propulsive electro-pop and breezy synth-pop, the album's sequel, Tension II, fully commits to the former. "Padam Padam" is a direct influence here, with the slinky, undulating synths and robotic vocal hooks of tracks like "Kiss Bang Bang" and "Hello," an outtake from the original sessions, clearly indebted to that sleeper hit from Tension. The new album, which could have easily been called More Tension, is Minogue's most shamelessly ingratiating collection of dance-pop songs since 2010's Aphrodite--maybe even 2001's Fever.

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