Suede
Bloodsports
(Suede Ltd)
Incredibly, it's 20 years since Suede won the Mercury Music Prize with their self-titled debut album. To put that into perspective, the same amount of time passed between David Bowie releasing the classic Low and the drum-and-bass-influenced Earthling. But while there was a world of difference between those two albums, this comeback from the early darlings of the 1990s Camden scene shows no such variation. And amen to that, because what Bloodsports does more than anything else is remind us that today's indie rock orthodoxy – jerky, anaemic stuff played by nerdy boys in Clark Kent glasses – is a poor successor to the churning guitars, unashamed carnality and dark glamour of what came before, a generation led by Brett Anderson and Suede. From opening song Barriers to closer Faultlines, this is an exciting, vigorous album which, while it adds nothing new to the band's DNA, still fizzes with more confidence and melodic invention than seems decent in a 39-minute set. An impressive return from a band I didn't know I could miss so much.
Barry Didcock
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