Night Thoughts (album)

Background and production

In January 2014 vocalist Brett Anderson revealed that Suede were in the middle of the writing process for a new album. Anderson mentioned that the band "want to carry on writing and pushing forward, so we're taking it somewhere else now." In March, keyboardist Neil Codling posted that Suede were in the studio recording the follow-up to Bloodsports (2013). The album, which was recorded in London and Brussels, features a full string section. The majority of the album was recorded in Belgium in one session, "record[ing] all the music [...] as one piece". Recording was produced by Ed Buller. The album was initially planned for release in 2015. Anderson explained the band wanted to "go somewhere else with [Night Thoughts], to make something with a bit more scope."

Composition

Codling compared "Outsiders" to the likes of "Trash" and "Beautiful Ones", calling it "a rallying cry for the excluded."

Mat Osman talked about the writing process:

"Neil and Richard pretty much wrote a record, they wrote about 45 minutes of music, lots of which ran into each other and lots of different themes re-emerged. We went to Belgium which were we started recording and basically recorded everything without Brett having any melodies or any words, which he’s never done before, so it was a bit of a leap in the dark. And then he sat down to write to the whole thing and we had no idea if it was going to work, it hasn’t ended up the same, uh since then we‘ve added about 4 songs and cut quite a lot of it and moved stuff around. It always started off as a record that was influenced by film music and stuff like that, the way you can have quite meandering pieces and scenes that reemerge, theres lots of stuff on the record that is made up of bits and pieces of other songs."

Release

In February 2015 Suede debuted "What I'm Trying to Tell You" live while at the NME Awards. On 7 September, Night Thoughts was announced for release. The band performed the whole album in full on 13 and 14 November 2015 at London Roundhouse. These dates will also serve as the premiere of the Night Thoughts film, which will play in the background behind the band. The DVD version of the film will be included in a special edition of the Night Thoughts LP.

On the press release, director Sargent stated:

"The record deals with a lot of familial themes – life, death, love, anguish and despair; themes that are expanded upon in its visual companion, providing a study of how those elements affect the human psyche. It resonated with me for many reasons, not least because my mother passed away a few days after I started writing a story for the film. The film starts with a man drowning in the waters of a deserted beach at night, as he fights for life, his mind plays out the events that lead him to be there."

On 2 September 2015 the band released a teaser video that was thought to be leading to a new album. Bassist Mat Osman linked to this video from Twitter with the caption "It begins". A trailer for the film and the album was released on 7 September. On 24 September, "Outsiders" was made available for streaming. Night Thoughts was released on 22 January 2016.

In early 2016 the band played a series of in-store acoustic gigs to promote the release of the album, including a session at HMV, Oxford Street in London.

Critical reception

Night Thoughts received positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 80, which indicates "generally favourable reviews", based on 29 reviews. AllMusic senior critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the album, stating: "With that past behind them, Suede can still dwell on big issues of love and mortality, but now that the past is in perspective, it all means a little bit more and what lies ahead is a little more precious, and that wide view makes Night Thoughts all the more moving." Writing for Exclaim!, Cam Lindsay stated: "Suede establish and uphold the album's gravitas with the type of symphonic grandiosity we've come to anticipate from them." The Guardian's Caroline Sullivan praised the album, calling it "another victory for the misfits" Andy Gill of The Independent wrote: "'How long will it take to break the plans that I never make?' It’s a question that was inevitably begged by those previous celebrations of low-rent outlaw glamour, and, in attempting to answer it, Suede may have made their best album." Consequence of Sound's John Hadusek thought that the record "finds a middleground between the guitar pop of the Coming Up era and the moodier textures of Dog Man Star," and regarded it as "a fine entry in their already strong discography."

Pitchfork critic Stuart Berman was positive in his assessment of the album, stating: "With Night Thoughts Suede once again leap up off the dancefloor to swing from the chandeliers." Berman further stated that the record "isn’t a rock opera per se, though it gamely assumes the form of one." The Quietus' Luke Turner thought that musically, the album "is the most solid and focussed-sounding album Suede have ever realised" and commented: "It certainly is the sound of a band stepping out of their own shadow to finally be all they can be." Rachel Brodsky of Spin wrote: "Night Thoughts honors Suede’s longstanding place in Brit-rock history as theatrical brooders with a penchant for pop and post-punk, while also celebrating the five-piece’s growth by supplying listeners with another round of swirling dance ballads and operatic, Dog Man Star-ry ruminations." Rolling Stone's Ashley Zlatopolsky described the record as the band's "most cohesive album to date, putting a decisively modern twist on their definitive Brit-pop."

Salon included the album in its list of the 14 "criminally underrated albums" of the year. Annie Zaleski felt that, although the album lacked the pop hooks of Bloodsports, the album had its own merits in "rich orchestral flourishes, dramatic guitar arpeggios and vocalist Brett Anderson’s still-pristine, theatrical croon."

Personnel

Suede

Other personnel

Film

Cast

Production