Album review: Suede - Bloodsports

By COLIN SOMERVILLE
Published on 10/03/2013 00:00

NO regrets from Brett Anderson about an underwhelming solo career, as he reassembles and records the band (still minus Bernard Butler) that provided the platform for success 20 years ago.

Suede - Bloodsports

Suede Ltd, £12.99

* * *

Turning back time is impossible, and the urgency and angst of that first album is but a distant memory.

It threatens to kick into life with Richard Oakes’ bombastic guitar powering Snowblind, but that proves a false alarm. Anderson manfully tries to invest For The Strangers with the requisite drama and intensity, and struggles to make It Starts And Ends With You say anything remotely profound.

Suede were never genre nor era specific, and sporadically offer glimpses of former glories. But What Are You Not Telling Me? sounds like a song from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, as does the melodrama of Faultlines, a grand musical non sequitur. If you are going to re-enter the musical arena, surely it is best to do so with a flourish, but Bloodsports is too timid despite the superficial bluster. Not a single song stands up to be counted, reeking of uncomfortable familiarity, and Hit Me is “handbags at dawn” when rawer confrontation may be required. This may prove to be Suede’s swansong, but the band should be better remembered.

Download this: Snowblind, Sabotage