rating:4

Monday 18th March 2013 There's a certain irony that Suede's comeback album, their first in ten and a half years since 2002's lacklustre effort A New Morning, should arrive one week after David Bowie's The Next Day . Suede's self-titled 1993 Mercury Prize winning debut was heavily indebted to glam-rock era Bowie, in particular Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars and, like that album, had a profound impact on the music of the era. This was an album don't forget that precipitated the onset of Britpop, attracted almost unbridled adulation from the music press and drew the band comparisons with The Sex Pistols and The Smiths in terms of cultural significance. Bowie's comeback has been lauded as one of the greatest in rock history; can Suede really pull off a resurgence one week later that anyone really cares about? Thankfully, yes. Bloodsports is not just good, it's really good. Brett Anderson and co have not opted to reinvent the wheel, but to cement and consolidate all the elements that made Suede great in the first place, which is why they've chosen to make an album that shares the epic sensibilities of Dog Man Star reflected through the blissful indie pop lens of Coming Up. Glorious album opener Barriers drips with purpose and intent and the chorus of "we jumped over the barriers" could not be more apt for a band that nearly fell into the abyss due to drug addiction. It's quintessential vintage Suede: effervescent and exhilirating, showing that Anderson's lyrics and vocals are back to his best ("Aniseed kisses and lipstick traces, lemonade sipped in Belgian rooms/ Couldn't replace the graceful notions, that clung to me when I clung to you..."). In anyone else's hands the riffs and melodies might sound overblown, but Suede have always had a way of making bittersweet melodrama seem effortlessly cool. Riotous hook-laden lead single It Starts And Ends With You encapsulates the recurrent themes of the album: lust, love and obsession intertwined ("I fall to the floor like my strings are cut/ Pinch myself but I don't wake up/ Spit in the wind cause too much is not enough"). Hit Me is the Beautiful Ones of Bloodsports: majestic indie-pop at its finest, with a chorus and melody so uplifting that it's bound to top a thousand playlists this summer. The rush of the melody and the impossibly catchy refrain of "Come on and hit me with your majesty... Come on and hit me with all your mystery!" recall that fantastic giddy feeling in your stomach when you've convinced yourself that you've found the one and that they love you back. Guitarist Richard Oakes must be sick to death of the Bernard Butler comparisons but his emphatic guitar work is outstanding here, nowhere more than on the awesome Snowblind, where producer Ed Buller does a fine job of accentuating the dynamic between lead guitarist and singer. Like the tone of the doomed relationships that it so expertly soundtracks Bloodsports becomes progressively darker and Anderson's lyrics more reflective, starting with the expansive synthy bluster of Sabotage and ending with the forlorn balladry of album closer Faultlines. These tracks are tinged with the anguish and fragility that characterised some of Suede's finest earlier work. Bloodsports is a fresh, dazzling and defiant comeback which- at a lean ten tracks- is brimming with killer songs. Welcome back, Mr Anderson.

1. Barriers 2. Snowblind 3. It Starts and Ends With You 6. Hit Me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D54iGj64dis

1. Barriers 2. Snowblind 3. It Starts and Ends With You 4. Sabotage 5. For the Strangers 6. Hit Me 7. Sometimes I Feel I'll Float Away 8. What Are You Not Telling Me? 9. Always 10. Faultlines