"Autofiction": Suede's new album

(due to release: 16/9/2022)

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, energized 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.

Certainly, the conceptual cogency of Autofiction's two predecessors is not squandered. The album’s framework goes thus: it starts and ends with amp crackle, evoking a band encountered mid-rehearsal. Within that context, Autofiction brims with noise and melody, alive in mind, body and feeling. Evidence arrives fast, with the sleek New Order-esque glide of She Still Leads Me On, an affecting song for Anderson’s mother and an instant keeper. 

In the spirit of old live favourite Implement Yeah’, Personality Disorder gives the post-punk pitch a rougher makeover; as for the disorder Anderson speaks of, ageing occupies his thoughts. And it remains there on 15 Again, where guitarist Richard Oakes galvanizes Anderson with one of many thrillingjy jabbing riffs: here, Suede feel like a band again.

For fans concerned that Suede have sacrificed some of their gracefulness to a more brusque show of muscle, The Only Way I Can Love You arrives as a gorgeous answer, ready to assume residency in live setlists. And it’s typical of Auto fiction's one-two punches of melody and mania that it leads to That Boy On A Stage, a loose-limbed brawler delivered with shouty go-for-it gusto.

Exploratory detours follow, Suede seeking out precarious positions from which to interrogate life priorities. Such is the space Autofiction operates in - while Suede songs used to visit the murk-woods between love songs and valentines to drugs, now they veer between reflections on home and rock’n’roll, bristling with inquiries into selfhood. 

Finally, Turn Off Your Brain And Yell (an early album subtitle) closes Autofiction on a cathartic note with a first for Suede: a non-ballad album closer. A subtle shift, perhaps, but one among many in this brash show of revitalization. For Suede, there are still boundaries to be pushed, challenges to fight down. This far into the game, autopilot is not an option.

Record Collector (2022, Oct)