The London Suede Autofiction LP

Rated One of the Best Rock Albums of 2022 by The Absolute Sound!

TAS Rated 4/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics in the January 2023 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

The London Suede return with their ninth studio album, Autofiction.

As The London Suede began work on the songs that would become Autofiction, they decided to go back to basics. In a move that recalled their most formative days, Brett Anderson, Mat Osman, Simon Gilbert, Richard Oakes and Neil Codling schlepped to a rehearsal studio in deserted Kings Cross to collect a key, hump their own gear, set up and start playing.

Speaking about Autofiction, Brett Anderson said: "Autofiction is our punk record. No whistles and bells. Just the five of us in a room with all the glitches and fuck-ups revealed; the band themselves exposed in all their primal mess."

First single "She Still Leads Me On" is the track that reconfigured what the album could be. A beautiful song written from Brett to his late mother. As its title suggests, Autofiction is one of Anderson's most personal records yet. Reflecting on the process of writing acclaimed memoirs Coal Black Mornings and Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn helped Brett get a newfound perspective on himself as a performer and singer in the public eye, much of which has bled into the lyricism of Autofiction.

...a mature work...delivered by a veteran band who know how to wield their power: the guitars and synths create lacerating, invigorating sheets of sound, accentuating and refuting the romanticism of vocalist Brett Anderson. The last time Suede sounded this muscular and urgent they were still in the process of discovering themselves. Here, the quintet know how to deploy not just their strengths but their distinctive blend of nervy post-punk, overheated glam, and yearning poetry to make an album that sounds full, complete, and utterly alive.

Britpop is alive and well in the hands—and hearts—of London Suede, ordained in 1992 by David Bowie as 'the best new band in Britain.'... the rawness of the Suede sound is rooted in a tight rhythm section and the fuzz-and-echoplex-saturated guitars of Psychedelic Furs fret guru John Ashton and the Cult's Billy Duffy. The album evokes the edgy aura of Nightime-era Killing Joke—lots of blood and vinegar. In an age when guitar-rock albums are an endangered species, it's a shot in the arm to experience the ominous 'That Boy on the Stage,' which ponders the power of a performer trapped by the spotlight, the rock stomps 'Black Ice' and 'Turn Off Your Brain and Yell,' and the dreamy power ballad 'What Am I Without You?' Bowie would be proud.