Their tenth album over all and fifth since the 2013 reformation, is classic Suede with a post-punk feel by the British rock band, with searing, strong, raw Magazine- and Cure-style guitar riffs by Richard Oakes and dark yet energised and emotive, declamatory lyrics by Brett Anderson. Among their best in this second half of their career, it’s visceral, simmering, swaggering and powerful, with big, singalong-melancholy choruses variously themed around mental health issues, transience, ageing, drug-dependence, and various social ills. And yet there’s something also nihilistically uplifting here in a suffer-together sort of way. On standout opener Disintegrate, with something of the Cure album Disintegration in mind, Anderson declares “Come down and disintegrate with me.” Something similar on the triumphantly devil-may-have-it next track Dancing With The Europeans - “Oh, with a European stain within me / And a European suffering in me / Dancing with the Europeans.” The title track has a particularly Magazine feel, the guitar with a steely reverb and Anderson moving to a talk-song mode and repeated chorus: “I’m on antidepressants I just lie awake / Singing a song while I’m happy.” Sweet Kid is a cri-de-coeur to grab life while you’ve got it: “Oh sweet kid, well this life belongs to you / Oh sweet kid, all the changes that you're going through.” Other highlights include the hope-and-despair-filled Broken Music For Broken People, the more stripped back electro-pop of Trance State, the dark, funereal June Rain, a tragic love song with a deathly ending (“So I close my eyes and walk into the traffic flow.”). No comfortable, heritage act approach as with some now veteran bands, but Suede doing what they do best withone will be cherished be long-time fans, but also likely to attract younger ones. Dark, unflinching, depressing, but cathartically stylish. Out on BMG.
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