A New Morning
Review: A New Morning – suede
A New Morning is, it would appear, unanimously the least liked suede album by both fans and band alike. Least liked is putting it somewhat politely in fact – credited as the reason the band split up for nearly a decade it has been thrown under the bus in recent press with a spectacular vigour and described as, amongst other things, bland, disappointing and most succinctly by Mat ‘shit’.
I’d be lying if I said when this came out it set my world on fire but did I hate it? No, not at all. I actually really rather liked it, and still do. I get a little sad for it every time it’s vilified but I do understand why. It’s a safe record, a comfortable old slippers record – and whatever any of the previous four were they were never that. While there are some definite gems in the b-sides for this era they are also some of the nadir moments of their output (with a couple being indefensibly bad) and it’s hard not to hear the period in retrospect as the sound of a band without much gas left in their tank.
At some point mid-way through the writing process there was a (now exiled to a forgotten corridor of history) line-up change as Neil left due to illness and Alex Lee joined – and between that, Brett suddenly adopting a Gallagheresque rasp and a distinct mood shift to something somewhat prosaic in tone there is a general feeling that it’s not quite ‘suede’. The era’s imagery included casual clothing, sun-streamed windows, blonde hair (!) and greenery. Combined with a lead single called ‘Positivity’ I suppose it seemed ‘just not cricket’ to a lot of fans. In the liner notes on the re-issue along with saying he basically wishes it hadn’t been released Brett describes it as them trying to ‘destroy their own myth’ and for me, perhaps because of this, while the album without doubt has the general vibe of the recently sober it somehow still manages to come off as not quite happy, not quite sad. A bit like someone telling you they are fine when it’s obvious they’re not.
At the time, after Head Music, I was – I would not go as far as to say to say a casual fan but my passion for the band was definitely coasting a little and it was, ironically, the fact that I *did* like this album a lot that made me go back and revisit Head Music again in the end. A New Morning may not be their best work but it has it’s moments and I am personally glad they released it even if they’re not.
But I never want to hear UFO again as long as I live.
Positivity
‘and the morning is for you
and the air is free
and the birds sing for you
and your positivity’
Not terrible, not great. Ridiculous video that almost tips into so bad it’s good.
5/10
—
Obsessions
‘Obsession is like sex, it’s simple and complex’
I love this song. Nice chuggy single-worthy track.
Brett is a bit obsessed with obsession, I’m a bit obsessed with Brett’s obsession with obsession…
9/10
—
Lonely Girls
‘Julia dreams while she’s typing away
Jackie kills time while the company pays
Tracy still hears 808 ringing in her brain’
This one is very reminiscent of some of the Coming Up era b-sides. I like the sound of the song, the melody and instrumentation but the lyrics feel overly familiar and it probably is more of a b-side standard than an album track.
6/10
—
Lost In Tv
‘I see you in my life
I see you on the screen
An ascending socialite
Orbiting the scene’
This song barely sounds like something I recognise as ‘suede’ but I’ve always loved it. A lovely melodic mid-tempo. There are a few tracks on the album where the alarming new Brett-voice (40 a day, bit butch) works well and this is one of them despite, or maybe because of it’s otherwise sweetness.
8/10
—
Beautiful Loser
‘Your brain is drip-connected to the satellite
Your heart is not a part of your brain
Aesthetics and inventions well they pass you by
And complicate your day’
This is another chuggy little rock song in a similar vein to Obsessions but more reminiscent of some of Coming Up. It has some nice staccato rhyming and a bit of bite – maybe the song on the album that gets closest to a more classic suede ‘rock’ song.
7/10
—
Streelife
‘Street life into the night with the syncopated melodies’
Yeah, this one is pretty terrible. Not so bad I have to run to turn it off but that’s about all I can say for it..
5/10
—
Astrogirl
‘A strange experience has started
Between her molecules and me
It’s like disease between us forming
From obsolete technology’
Lovely, romantic little ballad very reminiscent of the Coming up era slowies.
There’s some great lyrics in this song too. A lazy, optimistic songs about the value of human connection.
7/10
—
Untitled
‘Will you be my lover?
Will you be the one?
Will you be like no other?
For how long?’
There is a group of tracks on this album – this, ‘…Morning’, ‘When The Rain Falls’ and ‘Oceans’ that form the backbone of what I always feel the album should have / could have been. They are the songs that (vocal technique aside) dovetail more obviously into some of Brett’s solo work and are down tempo, sparser and less peppered with the lyrical ticks that haunt some of the later suede and Tears songs. This is not the best of them but it’s a song I enjoy a lot particularly as part of this ‘suite’ of songs.
The demo of this track is also very beautiful with some really lovely vocal harmonies and I think better on the whole than the final album version.
8/10
—
…Morning
‘Sleepy head get out of bed’
This, to me, is the touchstone for what this album was probably intended to sound like. A sweetly hopeful little vignette – the sound of opening the curtains, letting the light in and stretching into the day..
8/10
—
One Hit to The Body
‘I don’t need you to be sorry
I just wanted you to know
That this is one hit to the body
One hit to the soul
One hit to the body that won’t show’
I’ve always loved this song – it used to be a favourite of mine for putting on playlists for people. Along with Lost In TV it’s another song that sounds very far from a typical suede sound but it’s a great little track with a bitter but defiant spirit.
8/10
—
When The Rain Falls
‘When all the world looks like Atlantis
And cars sit rusting in the drives
Just step outside and hit the concrete pavement
As the rain falls down for you and I’
This perhaps tips slightly into overly-prosaic sounding for my liking and some of the lyrics are best not listened to too closely but it rescues itself from being insufferable and comes out the other side as a pleasant little song. The Stanbridge demo is much better with a darker tone and a sadly missing intro that would have given it at least another 2/10 points from me.
7/10
—
Oceans
‘We sit and rot here
resenting each year
Will you go,
Will you go?’
A haunting, classic suede weepy and the very definition of a hidden gem. One of my favourite suede songs which never fails to make me tearful relegated to the arse end of the album no-one likes. SADFACE.
Ostensibly about the protracted, incremental disintegration of a relationship neither party wants to call quits on, it’s hard not to imagine it as metaphor for the band itself at the time now.
‘We sing the old songs, the beat box plays on..’
10/10
—
Overall Score: 7/10
Crib notes: neither as good as it should have been or as bad as everyone thinks. Not the end in the end.
Listen to it when: Saturday morning with coffee and the paper.
In a fantasy world I would: Change When The Rain Falls and Untitled for their demos, ditch Positivity, Lonely Girls and Streetlife and switch in b-sides Simon, Cheap and Campfire Song.
Also, final word – I have to give a shoutout for Attitude / Golden Gun the great little standalone single release that came out to to promote them er.. splitting up.. (!) Poor ‘Attitude’ :/