Re: bloodsports promo and reviews
Posted: 14 Mar 2013, 06:44
March 13, 2013
Review: Suede – Bloodsports (Album)
by Martin-john McDonnell
http://www.hitthefloor.co.uk/featured/r ... rts-album/
Band: Suede
Release: Bloodsports (Album)
Release Date: 18/03/2013
So with trepidation comes the first album in ten years from gloriously sleazy Britpop pioneers Suede. After leaving it so long there really is pressure – the sort of pressure that Brett Anderson and co have had at the front of their minds since the idea of an album came about. The band scrapped an album worth of songs last spring in favour of the ones that are on this album. Whether it was a panicked call of a band trying to recapture past glories or a expertly executed protection of their legacy can only be decided with the album, and the fans needn’t have worried.
Kickstarting with ‘Barriers’ with it’s tribalistic drums and cavernous, bouncing guitar riff it’s apparent that Suede aren’t going to be singing about sex in council estates like in the heyday. But the band are all the better for it. Welcome to the leaner and meaner Suede, channeling romantic urges and windswept relationships as opposed to half the cocaine in Columbia.
‘Barriers‘ shows strong signs that the band have avoided the traps of reformation; nothing is worse than hearing a band rehashing a sound that was big ten years ago. Suede have actually moved their sound forward sounding more mature, yet they’ve kept that energy and passion that drove them to such heights in the early 90′s and created an album for the fans.
Common criticisms that are levelled at Suede are their “High on Diesel” broken home cliched lyrics and their potential for self parody, both of which have been largely avoided. Brett is obviously rejuvenated as a songwriter after starting his new life as a family man (he’s recently married with an 8 month old son) and what is quite obvious now is his penchant for that commonest of human emotions, that of love. He sings “Aniseed kisses and lipstick traces” on ‘Barriers‘ with such a push behind each lyric that even when he does slide into cliched lyrics (which isn’t often) they seem like they are being delivered with a wink and a nudge to the bands seedy past.
The other criticism of the lack of former guitarist Bernard Butler is quickly addressed too. ‘Snowblind’ with it’s verse riff that sounds like ‘Message In A Bottle’ meets Television should be enough to quickly push aside the majority of the naysayers. In fact Richard Oakes plays a blinder across this album with some of the most inventive playing on a mainstream album this year.
‘It Starts And Ends With You’ is quite rightly the lead single from the album, channeling that butterfly feeling of new love with a song that just pushes up and up as Brett sings “I shout out but it just spins faster, I crawl up but my knees are water,” until it hits it’s euphoric peak with perhaps the most glorious of codas in a pop song.
‘Sabotage’ meanwhile handles the other side of that beast that is love; primal lust and jealousy. A dramatic and spacious song in the vein of ‘Pantomime Horse’ or ‘Daddy’s Speeding’ this is the song on the album that broods and pulsates in ways a forty year old (plus) band really shouldn’t. It’s apparent also with this album that the band have taken lessons from Interpol (who were always kind of Suede-ish anyway) and made the bass and drums more prominent. Matt Osmon’s basslines and his skillfully complimentary playing stand out properly for the first time on possibly any Suede album.
‘For The Strangers’ is the albums ‘The Wild Ones’ moment. Lighters in the air melody laced over some of Brett’s most affecting lyrics “It’s like semaphore, between my eyes, we slither and slide and sink, feels like aerosol in in my eyes, and nothing compares to this,” with a riff that slows down the sleazy glam riffs of the likes of ‘Beautiful Ones’ to create Suede (and Brett’s) best ballad since the aforementioned pair of songs.
‘Hit Me’ is glorious and hopefully a contender for single number two. A sleazy glam riff that David Bowie would be proud of (did someone say he’s back?) powering a pining Brett pleading for his lover, to “Come on and hit me, with your majesty“. The song oozes double meaning and the lyrics are cleverly held back. The song could be about the physical feeling of love, animal urge or domestic violence. All that’s apparent is that it’s going to need a few more listens and a lyric book to even start to decipher.
‘Sometimes I Feel I’ll Float Away’ gives Brett a chance to wrap his impressive vocals, refreshed after ten years of sobriety, around a squealing guitar chorus backed with a twisted church piano in the verse. This is very reminiscant of the more complex songs on Bowie’s lastest album ‘The Next Day’.
‘What Are You Not Telling Me’ is the comedown moment, the counterpart to ‘It Starts And Ends With You‘ as Brett bemoans his unfaithful lover and his broken heart and asks “Will a miracle reveal itself?” The song is so right in the context of the album, although so heartbreakingly icy that it’s likely it’ll only make sense in the context of the album’s suite of songs about the twists and bends of love.
My main nark with the album is the sequencing, it’s just so unfaithful to the concept. While the idea that the album was originally meant to chart the beginning butterflies to the final bitter words of a roller coaster romance is evident, the songs cut from the album don’t make that as apparent and therefore there is no need to stuff the upbeat and more downbeat songs on separate ends of the albums. For that reason the otherwise gloriously cold stalagmites of songs that are ‘Always’ and ‘Faultlines’ suffer from the resulting downer feeling. But even that disappears on repeated listens as the listener delves into the guitar workouts on the album, especially on ‘Always‘.
This is one of the albums of the year already; proving to the doubters that they have the energy even when they are not high on diesel and gasoline. The band have pulled off a mature but vital album that, just like love, will grab hold of you for repeated ventures down its emotional journey. Suede are back and the only shame is that they couldn’t have released this instead of the bland ‘A New Morning’ album of ten years ago.
9/10
Review: Suede – Bloodsports (Album)
by Martin-john McDonnell
http://www.hitthefloor.co.uk/featured/r ... rts-album/
Band: Suede
Release: Bloodsports (Album)
Release Date: 18/03/2013
So with trepidation comes the first album in ten years from gloriously sleazy Britpop pioneers Suede. After leaving it so long there really is pressure – the sort of pressure that Brett Anderson and co have had at the front of their minds since the idea of an album came about. The band scrapped an album worth of songs last spring in favour of the ones that are on this album. Whether it was a panicked call of a band trying to recapture past glories or a expertly executed protection of their legacy can only be decided with the album, and the fans needn’t have worried.
Kickstarting with ‘Barriers’ with it’s tribalistic drums and cavernous, bouncing guitar riff it’s apparent that Suede aren’t going to be singing about sex in council estates like in the heyday. But the band are all the better for it. Welcome to the leaner and meaner Suede, channeling romantic urges and windswept relationships as opposed to half the cocaine in Columbia.
‘Barriers‘ shows strong signs that the band have avoided the traps of reformation; nothing is worse than hearing a band rehashing a sound that was big ten years ago. Suede have actually moved their sound forward sounding more mature, yet they’ve kept that energy and passion that drove them to such heights in the early 90′s and created an album for the fans.
Common criticisms that are levelled at Suede are their “High on Diesel” broken home cliched lyrics and their potential for self parody, both of which have been largely avoided. Brett is obviously rejuvenated as a songwriter after starting his new life as a family man (he’s recently married with an 8 month old son) and what is quite obvious now is his penchant for that commonest of human emotions, that of love. He sings “Aniseed kisses and lipstick traces” on ‘Barriers‘ with such a push behind each lyric that even when he does slide into cliched lyrics (which isn’t often) they seem like they are being delivered with a wink and a nudge to the bands seedy past.
The other criticism of the lack of former guitarist Bernard Butler is quickly addressed too. ‘Snowblind’ with it’s verse riff that sounds like ‘Message In A Bottle’ meets Television should be enough to quickly push aside the majority of the naysayers. In fact Richard Oakes plays a blinder across this album with some of the most inventive playing on a mainstream album this year.
‘It Starts And Ends With You’ is quite rightly the lead single from the album, channeling that butterfly feeling of new love with a song that just pushes up and up as Brett sings “I shout out but it just spins faster, I crawl up but my knees are water,” until it hits it’s euphoric peak with perhaps the most glorious of codas in a pop song.
‘Sabotage’ meanwhile handles the other side of that beast that is love; primal lust and jealousy. A dramatic and spacious song in the vein of ‘Pantomime Horse’ or ‘Daddy’s Speeding’ this is the song on the album that broods and pulsates in ways a forty year old (plus) band really shouldn’t. It’s apparent also with this album that the band have taken lessons from Interpol (who were always kind of Suede-ish anyway) and made the bass and drums more prominent. Matt Osmon’s basslines and his skillfully complimentary playing stand out properly for the first time on possibly any Suede album.
‘For The Strangers’ is the albums ‘The Wild Ones’ moment. Lighters in the air melody laced over some of Brett’s most affecting lyrics “It’s like semaphore, between my eyes, we slither and slide and sink, feels like aerosol in in my eyes, and nothing compares to this,” with a riff that slows down the sleazy glam riffs of the likes of ‘Beautiful Ones’ to create Suede (and Brett’s) best ballad since the aforementioned pair of songs.
‘Hit Me’ is glorious and hopefully a contender for single number two. A sleazy glam riff that David Bowie would be proud of (did someone say he’s back?) powering a pining Brett pleading for his lover, to “Come on and hit me, with your majesty“. The song oozes double meaning and the lyrics are cleverly held back. The song could be about the physical feeling of love, animal urge or domestic violence. All that’s apparent is that it’s going to need a few more listens and a lyric book to even start to decipher.
‘Sometimes I Feel I’ll Float Away’ gives Brett a chance to wrap his impressive vocals, refreshed after ten years of sobriety, around a squealing guitar chorus backed with a twisted church piano in the verse. This is very reminiscant of the more complex songs on Bowie’s lastest album ‘The Next Day’.
‘What Are You Not Telling Me’ is the comedown moment, the counterpart to ‘It Starts And Ends With You‘ as Brett bemoans his unfaithful lover and his broken heart and asks “Will a miracle reveal itself?” The song is so right in the context of the album, although so heartbreakingly icy that it’s likely it’ll only make sense in the context of the album’s suite of songs about the twists and bends of love.
My main nark with the album is the sequencing, it’s just so unfaithful to the concept. While the idea that the album was originally meant to chart the beginning butterflies to the final bitter words of a roller coaster romance is evident, the songs cut from the album don’t make that as apparent and therefore there is no need to stuff the upbeat and more downbeat songs on separate ends of the albums. For that reason the otherwise gloriously cold stalagmites of songs that are ‘Always’ and ‘Faultlines’ suffer from the resulting downer feeling. But even that disappears on repeated listens as the listener delves into the guitar workouts on the album, especially on ‘Always‘.
This is one of the albums of the year already; proving to the doubters that they have the energy even when they are not high on diesel and gasoline. The band have pulled off a mature but vital album that, just like love, will grab hold of you for repeated ventures down its emotional journey. Suede are back and the only shame is that they couldn’t have released this instead of the bland ‘A New Morning’ album of ten years ago.
9/10