WORTH A LOOK?: ****

Saint Etienne’s best single since their 2012 run of Tonight and I’ve Got Your Music finds them collaborating with the Chemical Brothers and returning to the dancefloor with a bang.

• Read on for reasons including how new album International will be the band’s last

Few acts have understood both the joy and melancholy of pop better than The Ets over the years and Glad is positively life-affirming: ‘Don’t it make you Glad when the sun shines in your eyes? Don’t it make you Glad to be alive?’

The Ets’ Pete Wiggs says: ‘The song is about taking pleasure in everyday things like nature and the outdoors when life is otherwise getting you down.’

The Britpop-defying indie trio recently explained to the Guardian why they are calling it a day after 35 years.

International, out in September, will be the final Saint Etienne album, includes work with turns as diverse as Nick Heyward and Xenomania, and has been described in music-to-our-ears fashion as ‘a strictly-bangers leaving party for one of the most singular bands in British indie’.

We’ve seen Saint Etienne live a few times over the years but most recently in Bristol when we wrote: ‘At a time when vintage acts devote whole tours to a classic album from their back catalogue and years gone by, we’re disappointed to report that the Ets’ latest long player barely merited a look-in here.

‘Had we been writing this blog in 2012, Saint Etienne’s London Palladium show would’ve been our gig of that year.

‘The songs featured here from that year’s collection Words And Music, synth pop gems Tonight and I’ve Got Your Music, are reminders perhaps that despite a history going back to the early 90s, all the band’s glories need not be rooted so far back in yesteryear.’

Glad is a return to form and, although we desperately don’t want them to split, we’ve everything crossed for a farewell tour.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Saint Etienne Tickets
• Have you seen Saint Etienne before and what did you think of this single? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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