This came out in 2002 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Don’t you want them back, baby?
Apparently, Phil Oakey and The Human League couldn’t believe it when we said that we don’t need them. So here they are again with Secrets, their second album in last 12 years and first since 1995’s Octopus. And if learning that The Human League even made an album in the ’90s isn’t enough of a surprise, here’s another shocker: Secrets isn’t half bad. Several of these songs — notably the soul-buzz opener All I Ever Wanted and the paranoid Love Me Madly? — are every bit as good as anything they wrote in their heyday, while displaying a darker, sharper, more modern edge to balance the retro-bleep synths, thwacking drum machines and ice-diva vocals. The downside: Several instrumentals that have the distinct odour of filler. Still, Secrets is worth keeping.
