The Blue Hour

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Matrix / Runout (DVD, Layer 0): 0190295642662 DI37352-01 manufactured by optimal media GmbH [One-Red "R" logo] Pretty weighty stuff, but then again, Suede have never done things in half measures, something that eventually began to become their downfall by the end of their original incarnation with 1999’s overly ostentatious Head Music and 2002’s feeble A New Morning. But since their reformation, the band seem to have gotten a proper handle on that tendency and can now marshal it and exercise it at will. Brett Anderson has stated, in recent interviews, that Suede “need to be unpleasant”, but has also said that he’s been writing this record about the world as seen through his son’s eyes. Despite all that strangeness, the album is quintessentially Suede, and in fact, it sounds like something the band had aspired to for years yet unable to reach until now. Every song will send chills up your spines, either musically or lyrically.

Dark, moody, and bloody fantastic. Richard Oakes has proved himself to be every bit as good as Butler ever was. And these last two albums also show that Brett was the beating soul of the band all along. SUEDE:: Banda anuncia novo álbum para setembro". Urge | Música, Filmes, Séries, Games (in Brazilian Portuguese). 30 April 2018 . Retrieved 5 May 2018. The first promotional single, "The Invisibles", was released on 3 June 2018. Second single, "Don't Be Afraid If Nobody Loves You" followed on 12 July. The third, "Life Is Golden" was released on 15 August; its accompanying music video comprises footage of Ukrainian ghost town, Pripyat. Fourth single, "Flytipping" was issued on 14 September. The accompanying music video of "Wastelands" was uploaded on 29 October through their official YouTube channel, and featured the free-runner Robbie Griffith. Al igual que los anteriores cortes, éste empieza con calma, con la voz de Brett secundada por teclados, guitarra, y bajo. La batería los recoge para meterlos poco después en un estribillo–himno majestuoso y armonioso. Una armonía que se rompe a mitad de la canción con la introducción de un potente riff-solo que ensalza, todavía más, el último tramo del tema. He adds: “The Blue Hour is the time of day when the light is fading and night is closing in. The songs hint at a narrative but never quite reveal it and never quite explain,” says Anderson, explaining the title. But as with any Suede album, it’s always about the songwriting, the band, the passion and the noise.” And, thankfully, there’s plenty of that.

Drowned in Sound's 15 Favourite Albums of 2018". Drowned in Sound. 9 December 2018 . Retrieved 12 September 2019. In the same interview, Anderson continued to discuss the inspiration for the new record, as well as its character: Finalmente, encontramos “Flytipping”. Un tema que sigue la tónica predominante del disco. Una guitarra con reverb y tremolo junto a la voz de Anderson ocupan la mitad del tema, hasta que a mitad del mismo llega la catarsis, donde todos los instrumentos a la vez dan forma y fuerza a un estribillo que termina languideciendo en un nuevo falsete. Después, un solo de guitarra de Oakes nos hace volar por hermosos paisajes durante más de dos minutos. Uno de los mejores cierres que hemos escuchado en los discos de Suede.

Ya para empezar, podemos hacernos una idea de por dónde va a ir el disco. Es un tema que comienza sumido en la oscuridad para dar paso a una guitarra eléctrica arpegiada cargada de tensión. La canción va adquiriendo más y más intensidad, conforme Brett cambia su registro entre estrofas, hasta explotar en ese “Here I am” final, arropado de unos coros sombríos. Después se acaba la música. Sólo se oye el grito desesperado de unos padres buscando a su hijo. Sublime. “Wastelands” I think we’re at this stage of our career where it doesn’t really matter what we do, as long as we’re engaged in doing it and making it interesting. Because of that, we can do quite extreme things. This is a very complicated record, much more so than the last too – and more diverse. It’s quite a journey. There are a lot of elements that we haven’t used before, like a choir and more spoken word and dialogue. There are a lot of field recordings on it too to thread the ideas together.” Today I found a dead bird,” sings Brett Anderson on this album’s Scott Walker-esque centre-piece, ‘Roadkill’. Poor bloody bird, with its “ brittle bones like snapped twigs / Savaged by the tyres and tossed in the tar / Broken in the English dirt / A carcass for the carrying crow”. Set atop a haze of strings and drones, Anderson’s spoken-word lament and the surrounding atmosphere of fog, doom and death capture the essence of ‘The Blue Hour’. Photography By [Inner Sleeve Photography] – Brett Anderson, Ian Grenfell, Neil Codling, Paul Khera, Simon Gilbert, Zelwanka I think about it quite a bit. We’ve gone wrong in the past. We had an album called ‘A New Morning’ which was a disaster in every way. It was just a very bad record. We were trying to undermine the notion of what it is to be Suede fan and oppose all of those cliches. It’s a very interesting question for an artist: how much do they respond to what their audience wants and how much do they lead? You can parallel it with politicians, can’t you? There are those politicians who base their decisions around polling people and the public opinion and popular consensus. There are politicians who make very unpopular decisions, but they have a sense of vision about these things. There are parallels with the artist and their fanbase. It’s important to challenge what you fans want, because if you end up following that you end up in self parody. I’ve always wanted to avoid that. There is a fine line and it’s a very interesting fine line. You’re leading and introducing people to your ideas but you need to do it in your own language – but still for that language to be fresh.”The Blue Hour isn’t afraid and it isn’t trying to be what it’s not. It’s that melodic bass, sustained yet riff laden guitar, synth and piano sound that only Suede have mastered. Add to that lyrics that touch a hopeless Englishness that’s both romantic and doomed, and you’ve got the record in a nutshell. Turner, Luke (21 September 2018). "Suede: The Blue Hour review – a wild ride into a rural nightmare". The Guardian . Retrieved 22 September 2018.

This is Suede at its most adventurous, Gothic, audacious, and confident yet. The Blue Hour gives us an insane yet carefully orchestrated This is Suede at its most adventurous, Gothic, audacious, and confident yet. The Blue Hour gives us an insane yet carefully orchestrated journey of funeral dirges, witch chants, words from Brett's son, unexpected power chords, ridiculous amounts of orchestral strings juxtaposed against cheap synth strings, and of course ample walls of guitar sound. It loosely chronicles an episode of child abduction, whether by an abductor, by forces of nature, or by the lure of cities, yet somehow manages to sound optimistic and hopeful in its twisted way.This is a new Suede, expanding on a sound that’s different to both the debut and DMS, and the post Bernard records. This is Blood Sports and Night Thoughts taking the next step. The Blue Hour is its own record but at the same time it works with the previous two releases in what feels like a whole. This is at least as good as the last record, and at least as good as anything they've put out before. Brett is candid about his son’s influence on him in creative terms: “It used to be friends or lovers but these days my muse is my son. I see life through his eyes. I imagined a fearful world, the way that a child sees it, and in a way, this was a reflection of my own childhood.”

Le sigue “Mistress”, un tema carente de batería, más lento, que se soporta, primero sobre la firmeza de los arpegios de Richard Oakes, y el bajo, teclado y cuerdas después. Nos presenta la historia de un affair contada desde el punto de vista de un niño, que ve como su padre engaña a su madre con otra mujer, con todas las dudas que ese hecho le suscita. “Beyond the Outskirts” Excellent single ‘Life Is Golden’, whose video captures the abandoned post-apocalyptic town of Pripyat after the Chernobyl disaster and which soars in the same way that ‘The Wild Ones’ did, is a perfect example of where Suede are at in 2018. Having turned to producer Alan Moulder to collaborate with, rather than their mainstay creative foil Ed Buller, they’ve managed to expand their canvas even further, mixing gothic grandeur and poetry with a brutal absence of sentimentality. The Blue Hour is an update of Dog Man Star for austerity ravaged, Brexit-threatened Britain, and its left-behind towns, hollowed-out cities and untamed countrysides.It builds up to a kitsch finale, Anderson indulging his Bowie fixation amid the swirling strings and harp of All The Wild Places (“Of all the wild places I love / Yours is the most desolate”) and The Invisibles, all lush strings and impassioned vocals, a Still Life for the second generation of Suede fans.