The Lexicon of Love II
| The Lexicon of Love II | ||||
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| Studio album by ABC | ||||
| Released | 27 May 2016 | |||
| Length | 45:19 | |||
| Label | Virgin EMI | |||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 70/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
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| The Independent | |
| The Quietus |  |
| Record Collector | |
| The Times | |
The Lexicon of Love II is the ninth studio album by English band ABC. It was released on 27 May 2016 on Virgin EMI, eight years after their previous album Traffic. After a performance of ABC's studio album The Lexicon of Love in concert with Anne Dudley, lead singer of the band Martin Fry felt that it was time to develop a proper follow-up to the album. He wrote over 40 songs for the album with various guest writers and recorded the album with himself and Gary Stevenson producing. On the album's release, it received generally favourable reviews.
In 2009, ABC member Martin Fry played The Lexicon of Love in its entirety at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Concert Orchestra which was conducted by Anne Dudley. This performance led to Fry desiring to create a proper follow-up to The Lexicon of Love. Fry created the album with the title The Lexicon of Love II, noting that "People have a great affection for the first record, [but] I'm beyond risk now."
Production on the album began in October 2015. All of the songs were written in the order that they were presented on the record with the exception of "Viva Love" which Fry described as a song that "had been knocking round from way back that had never really been released". Versions of "Viva Love" and "Kiss Me Goodbye" had previously appeared on a 2005 download version of Abracadabra. The songs were written with several guests including Rob Fusari. Fry and his writers initially had 40 new songs in total, and had to persuade Virgin Records to listen to a few of the songs during one of his many meetings about compilation albums.Trevor Horn, who had produced The Lexicon of Love, was not available for the new album which led to Fry and producer Gary Stevenson to produce it.
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