Electric Dreams

Brit-rock veterans galvanise their comeback momentum with amped-up anthems.

- Kevin Harley

Suede

Autofiction

BMG 4050538703870 (CD, LP)

If Suede took their taste for high-concept grandeur to its logical end-point on 2018's The Blue Hour, a question lingered: how do you top that? The answer lay in the tour, where Suede's primal fervour paid sweat-soaked testimony to the engaged, energised vigour of a band who had nailed this comeback game. If they could bottle that visceral dynamism with Brett Anderson's newly deepened lyrical form, new ways forward would surely beckon.

The proof is Autofiction, an album that taps into Suede's galvanic guitar-rock drama without falling prey to that dread declaration of stagnation, the back-to-basics album. Perhaps deceptively, Suede's approach here is forward-thinking. Elaborating on Anderson's memoirs, Coal Black Mornings and Afternoons With The Blinds Drawn, their ninth album maintains the ambiguous lyrical maturity of Night Thoughts and The Blue Hour in fretful reflections on middle age and marriage, fame and family, then turns those reflections outwards in blasts of catharsis to - effectively bridge the Dog Man Star/Coming Up divide.