The band continues one of British rock’s most heartening comeback stories of recent years with an album that feels like a companion piece to 2022’s ‘Autofiction’
Brett Anderson of Suede performs at The Royal Festival Hall Clore Ballroom, London, to mark the release of their new album ‘Antidepressants’. Photo: Jim Dyson/Getty
Brett Anderson, Suede’s frontman, recently described his band as “anti-nostalgia”. It’s surely a pointed reference to Oasis, who didn’t even bother to write new songs for their (excellent) comeback shows.
Suede made their mark before Oasis — they effectively birthed Britpop, even though Anderson hates the term. While the Gallagher brothers are content to plunder their mid-1990s material for their live shows, Suede are determined to plough new furrows, to release original material that’s not in thrall to what they did before, but songs that can stand proudly themselves.
Their second coming — which began with 2013’s Bloodsports — is one of British rock’s most heartening stories of recent years. Unlike most of their peers, the quintet have released a string of superb comeback albums that see them looking forward, not backwards. In fact, this ninth offering means that they’ve released more albums than in their first flush of success.
In some ways, Antidepressants feels like a companion piece to their last one, 2022’s spirited Autofiction, although if that one was a punk album, this one feels rooted in post-punk.
A sense of creeping anxiety and paranoia inform songs that capture what it is to feel disconnected in an always-on world. One of the song titles, Broken Music for Broken People, is particularly apt and many will draw comparisons to bands like early Cure and Public Image Ltd. Opening track Disintegrate — a nod to the Cure’s Disintegration — is thrillingly bleak and built on muscular percussion from Simon Gilbert.
It’s an album of raw power — one befitting a band that remain electrifying live, as was the case when they played Dublin last year as part of the Trinity Summer Series.
Ed Buller’s production accentuates Suede’s standing as a great live band and while there are studio tricks, much of this album feels as though the five bandmates are playing live in a room together. It lends the songs an intoxicating sense of urgency.
Several tracks are up there with Suede’s best, but the playful Criminal Ways and the startling title song deserves special mention. The latter truly captures what a special live band Suede are, 32 years after their debut album. It’s every bit as blistering and brutally direct as their earliest singles were.