(Nude/All formats)
"... Success, glamour and excess, then - the three themes Suede reinvented way back in '92 with their opening triptych of guts'n'glitter singles - are finally en vogue, and Suede haven't had a look in. The good times, pure and simple. Because Suede, as we well know, are made of darker, more grandiose stuff. Lest we forget, Brett Anderson is the man who spent a year in a rambling gothic house in Highgate scrambling his mind on drugs in the quest to write the words to 'Dog Man Star', an album so musically expansive - care of Bernard Butler - that it barely made any sense whatsoever. A solemn duty, then, to report that none of such wilful extravagance appears on Suede's new album. We're 'Coming Up', after all; about to receive the rush of good times of drug use rather than wallowing in their downside.
The solitary trace of complete madness on the album comes in 'Starcrazy', when, amidst a swamp of Moogs, Brett momentarily loses his marbles and hilariously hollers "Violence!" for no apparent reason, but even that's come and gone in a nano-second. Gone too, blessedly, is the Scott Walker croon which plagued 'The Wild Ones' and 'Still Life', and in its place comes something other. Instead we get choons: the very stuff of these instant party times. There's no pissing about. 'Trash', significantly, is the opener. No more fin de siècle proclamations à la 'Introducing The Band', swathed in swirling Egyptian guitars and solipsist gobbledegook. Instead a lyric built on an disarming self-awareness ("But we're trash you and me/We're the litter on the breeze") which zips by into the fade-out while you're still waiting for the weird bit to kick in. Thereafter, we're charging headlong through a series of songs so bullishly verse-chorus friendly you half expect Brett to slap his arse and yelp, "And how about that!" at the close of each one.
'Filmstar' is near-textbook Suede, Brett observing the rattlesnake flash of a sleazy celluloid mover in his "Terylene shirt" over the sort of glitz-krieg shuffle Donovan Leitch would die for; whilst 'Lazy' - one of two Brett originals - is a cheesy slice of Suede-lite which manages to combine the simplistic structure of 'The Power' with the bubblegum jauntiness of one of those mid-'60s radio hits by The Turtles or someone. Bizarre. 'She', meanwhile, carries all the hallmarks of vintage Suede (brutal, whiplash guitars; a lyric careering between eroticism and the downright perverse ("She, sh-shaking up the karma/She, injecting marid-juana") whilst being choked to a standstill at a mere four minutes.
See, the prickly exterior Brett has maintained in interviews ever since Butler's departure appears to have manifested itself physically in the songs he and Richard Oakes have written. Bernard doesn't exist. He never existed. The killing of the flash boy, in short. To wit: radio-friendly tunefulness, Suedeish themes at all times, and total inter-band unity are in, and individual brilliance is most definitely out. Perhaps 21-year-old Neil Codling holds the key, he manages to co-write two of the album's finest songs. 'Starcrazy', snagged around an electric eel of a tune, prompts Brett's best vocal of the whole 40 minutes (his singing is vastly improved throughout), whilst 'The Chemistry Between Us' has just the hint of a 'Still Life' about it, despite the "Oh Class A, Class B/Is that the only chemistry between us?" kiss off. Still, that's one less clich for Jake Shillingford to get his larynx round. In between them we get the album's greatest moment. 'Picnic By The Motorway', shorn of the syrupy layers of Richard Oakes' guitars, spirals along the iciest of synth progressions, whilst effortlessly capturing the claustrophobia of love affairs and car travel on sick, summer afternoons. A true gem, and the only real evidence of the strung-out weirdness of 'Dog Man Star'.
After which comes a final 'Saturday Night', which sees no reason why it shouldn't base itself around the tune of Elton John's 'Song For Guy'. But y'know, anything goes, right? Essentially then, 'Coming Up', ends up as a stickily fine mid-'90s post-Britpop album, and one that's miles ahead of 90 per cent of their successors. Hear it blasting out of the in-house radio stations in the local Megastore and it will make perfect sense. 'Coming Up' serves as concrete proof that Suede are back from their self-imposed exile as big and brash as ever and thank Christ for that."
(8/10)
Paul Moody-NME
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