Suede
Sci-fi Lullabies

THE REVIEW

One of the secondary features of '90s Brit pop bands was their ability to produce great b-sides during a period when the 45 rpm format was losing its commercial appeal.

Suede wisely decided to compile their best b-sides from the time of their debut LP into a double CD, allowing them to ride the success of their previous album Coming Up from '96.

The double CD was released in 1997 and essentially contains all the b-sides from their singles (taken from Suede, Dog Man Star and Coming Up) in chronological order of release with CD1 essentially presenting the band during the era of their first guitarist Butler and CD2 featuring compositions after his departure and the inclusion of Oakes on guitars and Codling on keyboards.

This is a collection of excellent musical quality that stands on par with the band's other releases.

The sounds, much more than what can be inferred from the albums, are a tribute to the Smiths school and Brett Anderson's voice sounds especially (particularly on CD1) like Morrissey's, while Butler has committed to memory and made his own the arpeggios and riffs of Johnny Marr, thus creating a sonic canvas made of dissonances and glissandos that form the musical backdrop upon which Anderson's naive melodies are drawn.

It's pointless to compare the two discs and thus the two different periods of the band: certainly the b-sides authored by Anderson/Butler have a higher level of originality compared to the later tracks composed by Anderson with Oakes. This will become more evident when listening to the b-sides from the singles extracted (but not included in this collection) from the LP Head Music of '99 and from New Morning of 2002.

Particularly notable are "My Dark Star", "Whipsnade", "Modern Boys" (from the first CD) and "Another No One", "Young Man" and "W.S.D." (from the second CD).

Definitely an album to buy if you're a fan of Brit pop with a glam twist.