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Ten things you really need to know about the new Darren Hayes album

1. Contrary to expectations ‘Popular’ is not the only ridiculous electro epic on ‘The Tension & The Spark’. In fact, the album scales heights of electronic ridiculosity barely even hinted at by ‘Popular’.

2. ‘The Tension & The Spark’ only contains four ballads, which considering Darren’s ‘previous’ is pretty astounding really. And even then they’re not proper ballads because they’ve got swizzly electronic sound effects all over the shop, meaning that they are in fact futuristic cyberballads from outer space. (ie There’s not much on the old “I want to stand with you on a mountain” front.)

3. Darren has purportedly written and produced the entire thing himself, which is pretty impressive when you think about it, isn’t it.

4. The lyrics are all v dark ‘n’ moody ‘n’ honest. We haven’t noticed anything about bumming yet, but watch this space.

5. The very best bit on the entire album is in the opening track, ‘Darkness’, when there’s been a load of stuff about discovering that the monster you’ve been running from is the monster in you (which has got to be pretty annoying), and then suddenly the whole song explodes with a brilliant “better to hold on to love, better to hold on to love” refrain.

6. ‘Ego’ would be a good Oasis song, if such a thing existed in 2004.

7. Viewers! If you could stand with any celebrity on a mountain, who would you choose? Email now: mountaincelebrity@popjustice.co.uk.

8. Songs like ‘I Like The Way’ sound a bit like they’ve been produced by the Pet Shop Boys while ‘I Forgive You’ has a feel of George Michael’s ‘Freeek!’ (with – as an added bonus – a tune). ‘Love & Attraction’ is like some sort of massive electroclash reworking of ‘You Spin Me Round’ with space invader sound effects. Although, to be honest, it actually sounds nothing like ‘You Spin Me Round’ at all.

9. The tracklisting, if you’re interested in that sort of thing, is: ‘Darkness’, ‘I Like The Way’, ‘Light’, ‘Popular’, ‘Dublin Sky’, ‘Hero’, ‘Unlovable’, ‘Void’, ‘I Forgive You’, ‘Feel’, ‘Love And Attracttion’, ‘Sense Of Humor’, ‘Ego’.

10. This is probably our favourite pop album of the year so far, and will conceivably hold that title until Girls Aloud unveil their magnum opus later in the summer.