WORTH A LOOK?: ****

We’ve enjoyed but not especially loved the 3 albums this beloved band have made since their reformation in 2013 but think this single is their best they’ve released since their 90s imperial phase.

• Read on for reasons including everything we know about new album Autofiction

Lead singer Brett Anderson’s mother died in the 80s before he found fame and he told the Guardian about how early Suede song The Next Life was unknowingly influenced by it.

Anderson said: ‘Even at the time of writing it, it wasn’t clear to me that it was about my mum, but songs are mysterious, sometimes shifting and changing and revealing themselves in different ways, even to the writer.

‘I’ve often found that when writing about an emotion – loss, for example – I’m unable to write about just one situation, as parallel experiences and different people will poke their way into my head and form a sort of amalgam. Therefore, I’ve always found it a bit simplistic to discuss what a song is “about” as the subject matter of a single song for me is often inspired by different things.

‘And so it was with the lyrics of The Next Life that I wrote as a general meditation on loss but that I realised years later were so crushingly obviously about my mother.’

We mention this because She Still Leads Me On seems to very much to return to that subject matter. It’s the 1st single from an album called Autofiction which may have taken its title from drawing on the personal and to embellish using other thoughts and experiences.

The band promise a new rockier, punk sound on this 9th studio album and didn’t play any of the tracks from it when we saw them last month in Barcelona towards the end of their Coming Up Live 25th anniversary tour postponed because of Covid.

It was a thrilling gig and a reminder why the 2 Electric Ballroom, Camden gigs in October sold out so quickly. The album itself is released 16 September 2022.

If the lead-off single is any indication, it’s an album that could be amongst the band’s very best since their 90s heyday.

• Pictures courtesy Suede and Razzmatazz Tickets
• Have you heard any of these songs or seen any of these shows? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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