The Domestic Terrorist - Future Legends

“Future Legend” - Suede in 1999
(another archive piece dredged up from my days working on Suede’s fanclub)

“Oh yeah - I’ve heard David Bowie” (my brother)

Such lazy comparisons are inevitable. A first listen to the new Suede will show that they are still the same, yet different. Maybe, as Mat joked once, he’s been replaced by two 16 year old Japanese girls. Again, Suede are evolving beyond what is expected of them. Knowing that 90% of all music is listened to at home in the urban bedroom, and not in a high street Metropolis night club

The tantalising extracts on the “Implement Yeah” CD show Suede to still be masters. Not afraid to take chances. Not afraid to branch out. Sure, it would’ve been very easy to do Coming Up II... “That should do it Brett, just slap a few chunky riffs on and a lyrics about satellites, flats, and bisexual heart attacks” . But Suede aren’t about that. They’re about chances. About being true to oneself. About not following the herd.

Suede have changed. This music isn’t dark as such. Nor is it cold. It’s sleek. It sounds the way a stealth bomber looks. Dark, yet light, fast yet slow, mechanical yet pulsing with life.

For material such as “Savoir Faire”, a clinical rhythm track from Mat and Simon leaves Richard to tease the kind of restrained, and thus, more effective sounds from his guitar that shows that it isn’t what you leave but what you leave out that makes a good musician.

Similarly, this minimalist approach allows Neils casual style to blossom. Suede aren’t about filling every inch of master tape with guitar riffs these days. They’re about the glamour of the underdog in the rain.

Brett’s lyrical bent - the same as ever, yet now more alien to the world - are transmissions from an alien stuck in a spaceship, watching aghast at the world below. I don’t really know how to describe it - a cold night in Berlin, a rainy afternoon in London, the dawn sun breaking on metal

Similarly, “Implement Yeah” and “John Pong” show Suede to be moving on - no longer caught in the shadow of past glories (if indeed, they ever were) - to reveal a paradox of ideas. Slow, yet fast. Trashy yet classy. Sleek, yet rough. It might not be as instant as Coming Up but the important thing is that Suede don’t make music to please anyone but themselves. The way the best music is made. Still waiting

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws