Albums: Antidepressants

Released through BMG and under the production by Ed Bueller, "Antidepressants" is the 10th., studio album by Suede and 5th., since the band reformed again and one of the most anticipated and eager albums of the year, which has been described as a post-punk and gothic rock with themes such as mortality and modern disconnection, and it is intended to be the second in a trilogy of "black and white" albums, starting with Autofiction (2022). 

 

The album has been preceded by three singles "Disintegrate", "Trance State" & "Dancing With The Europeans" and so far so good, an interesting and intense records with no fillers. The band started the work in their new material after the released of "Autofiction", according to Anderson, next album would be more experimental a ballet soundtrack, but the project was shelved with two tracks "Between an Atom and a Star" and "Life Is Endless, Life Is a Moment" repurposed for Antidepressants.

 

The album explores themes such as paranoia, death, and disconnection in the modern age. While the overall result is dark, both in tone and in subject matter, the lyrics often employ a more optimistic perspective. For instance "Dancing with the Europeans" is a celebration of the connections that people do have in an otherwise disconnected world, "Broken Music for Broken People", seen as reminiscent of Suede's 1996 song "Trash", and it suggests that music offers the socially disenfranchised a means to connect. ^"Sweet Kid" is a song of reassurances toward Anderson's son, told from a frame of reference driven by an awareness of his own mortality.

 

The band again trusted Ed Bueller talents for this album, the band keeps their essence throught the record under a dark layer full of strong lines and agresivity, their black and white album and their most visceral recording so far, with certain touches of theatricality with no ornamentations and in some way it showed the opposite face and the most distante of their 2018 album  "The Blue Hour". 

 

The album is a collection of intense, rage and elegant tracks with a guitar led approach such as "Sweet Kid", "Criminal Ways", Disintegrate", Broken Music", and "Sound And The Summer" combined with the bangers "Disintegrate", "Antidepressants", and "Trance State" and even the optimistic "Dancing With The Europeans"; and of course there is a place for beautiful and elegant tunes such as "Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star" and "June Rain", the perfect ballads in their own and the very last one the gothic "Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment" to close a nearly perfect album.

 

The album previously had the working title Broken Music for Broken People, which, like Antidepressants, is the name of a track. Anderson had also considered Suppression but decided against it, believing that it was too dark. The front cover alludes to a 1962 Vogue photograph taken by John Deakin of the artist Francis Bacon in which he posed shirtless between two slabs of meat; the photo of Bacon is in turn a reference to his painting Figure with Meat.

 

Definitely a truly intense album, a courageous one to reclaim the band's place with a truly powerful and inspired sound, a matured one and of course we cannot forget the lyrircs and impecable voice of Anderson well-accomplished here and a serious candidate for the album of the year. 

 

Antidepressants Track List:  

 

1. Disintegrate

2. Dancing With The Europeans

3. Antidepressants

4. Sweet Kid

5. The Sound And The Summer

6. Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star

7. Broken Music For Broken People 

8. Criminal Ways

9. Trance State

10. June Rain

11. Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment