The Blue Hour

Product Information

I regret having listened to the four songs released before, The Blue Hour demands like no other Suede's record to be listened to in its integrity. I admire and envy those of you who resisted. Brett is candid about his son’s influence on him in creative terms: “It used to be friends or lovers but these days my muse is my son. I see life through his eyes. I imagined a fearful world, the way that a child sees it, and in a way, this was a reflection of my own childhood.” Offiziellecharts.de – Suede – The Blue Hour" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 28 September 2018.

Homewood, Ben (26 September 2018). "Suede poised for Top 5 entry with The Blue Hour". Music Week . Retrieved 9 December 2018. Photography By [Inner Sleeve Photography] – Brett Anderson, Ian Grenfell, Neil Codling, Paul Khera, Simon Gilbert, Zelwanka Unas cuerdas son el preludio a la voz de Anderson, que junto con unos arpegios y teclados, nos llevan hasta un puente donde unos violines que golpean las cuerdas con tremolo, aumentan la tensión que desemboca en un estribillo hermoso cantado en falsete. Finalmente, encontramos “Flytipping”. Un tema que sigue la tónica predominante del disco. Una guitarra con reverb y tremolo junto a la voz de Anderson ocupan la mitad del tema, hasta que a mitad del mismo llega la catarsis, donde todos los instrumentos a la vez dan forma y fuerza a un estribillo que termina languideciendo en un nuevo falsete. Después, un solo de guitarra de Oakes nos hace volar por hermosos paisajes durante más de dos minutos. Uno de los mejores cierres que hemos escuchado en los discos de Suede. It builds up to a kitsch finale, Anderson indulging his Bowie fixation amid the swirling strings and harp of All The Wild Places (“Of all the wild places I love / Yours is the most desolate”) and The Invisibles, all lush strings and impassioned vocals, a Still Life for the second generation of Suede fans.Few things in the musical calendar are quite so intriguing as a new Suede album, and this has been as much the case in their second act as in their first. They may have been lumped in with the Britpop movement, but it was something they always seemed to see through. They saw through its lumbering blokishness, its boorishness, its groaning, lead-footed, sing-a-long choruses. Suede were of a different color. Yes, you could hear a bit of Scott Walker and the odd Bowie-ism in their sound, but everyone has influences. Not everyone transcends them. Suede did and still do. Insomnia had me listening to it at 2am on 21 September (New Zealand time) when I guess the rest of the world may not have got their grotty little paws on it just yet. It didn’t grab me like that sacred moment when I first listened to Dog Man Star, and realised that I wasn’t the only one who both loved and hated the housing estate hopelessness of suburban England in the first half of the 90s. But it had me in a different way.

They will (of course) be forever judged on Dog Man Star. That’s unfair, because DMS was very much of its time and times change. As a fan I’ve They will (of course) be forever judged on Dog Man Star. That’s unfair, because DMS was very much of its time and times change. As a fan I’ve changed too. I don’t want another DMS, and I guess Suede don’t want to make that record again either. I find it everywhere. It’s everywhere in life. No one wants to hear about the nice things in life. It’s not that my life is particularly unpleasant, but I just find those things more interesting. That’s where the tension lies. It’s about the push and pull. No one wants to write about harmony. It’s dull. Well, I can’t do it very well so I choose not to.” En la recta final del disco escuchamos “All The Wild Places”. Un corte que compusieron para el anterior álbum “Bloodsports”, pero que desestimaron por no acabar de encajar. En “The Blue Hour”, sin embargo, sí que se siente parte de esa belleza e inquietud. Es una canción en la que destaca la voz de Brett cantando una vez más a lo salvaje, arropada por la grandeza de una orquesta. “The Invisibles” Hodgkinson, Will (21 September 2018). "Pop review: Suede: The Blue Hour". The Times . Retrieved 7 September 2019.

Release

It’s hard to properly digest the impact of The Blue Hour, even after a number of listens, such is the musical treasure on display. It’s certainly a hugely impressive achievement from a band which, even 25 years into its existence, is still clearly intent on stretching itself in artistic terms, finding new ways to surprise while remaining within a firmly established aesthetic. However, it’s difficult to imagine how much further Suede can expand along these lines without becoming overblown and patently ridiculous. Indeed, on many occasions The Blue Hour feels like a high-wire act as the mixture of high-concept and melodrama threatens to overbalance the music, although it never actually does. For now, the second coming of Suede continues with a third consecutive triumph. Enjoy it while it lasts. (8/10) (Ed Biggs)

To Anderson, they’re not so different. “I wanted The Blue Hour to be set in a very bleak, unpleasant landscape of roadkill, B roads and fly tipping,” he says. “As a city dweller, you can kind of romanticise the countryside as this kind of Arcadian idyll, but having lived there for a couple of years, I can tell you it just isn’t like that. There is a lot of ugliness and cruelty out there.” The unwitting but revolutionary forefathers of Britpop are now well away from the hedonism, decadence and urban decay that once inspired them. Instead, on their eighth album, they wander down the B-roads, among – well – the fly-tippings, the chain-link fences and the badger corpses. They’ve hit the countryside, but this is not a pastoral. Suede’s latest evolution sees them boldly flexing their imaginations to the terror and vulnerability that lays “ just beyond the hard shoulder”.The result is possibly the most satisfying entry in what those of us of a less fanciful persuasion might call a trilogy. There’s a concept, but it’s worn lightly – lightly enough, in fact, that ‘concept album’ would be a misleading appellation. The story isn’t fully explained or resolved, leaving room for the listener’s mind to become part of the action. There’s a missing child amid the menacing open spaces, fields, and woods of the countryside as night descends. Other characters emerge in the songs, though it’s hard to determine whether for good or ill. Drowned in Sound's 15 Favourite Albums of 2018". Drowned in Sound. 9 December 2018 . Retrieved 12 September 2019.