Less of a stylistic new dawn than the album title implies, A New Morning is very much in the insistent pop mould of the immediately preceeding Suede albums Head Music and Coming Up. In fact, Brett Anderson has been known to describe this--the band's fifth missive--as Suede's most "up" recording to date. But while the album's original choice of title--Instant Sunshine (said words being the REM-inflected counter-harmonies on "Lost In TV", a song which eager-eared obsessives may have already heard, in demo form, hidden away on the DVD of the same name)--may have served to overstate the album's buoyancy, A New Morning is a rather more radiant proposition than one might expect from trashy, black-garbed bohemians with wan complexions, particularly at a time when sombre, soul-searching artistry and experimentalism rule the roost in the rock world. Thus, "Street Life"--neither the Roxy Music nor Crusaders number--is both fluffy and thrilling, Suede's very own "Hippy Hippy Shake" style inducement to "hit the street to the concrete beat" with a "wa hoo wa hoo wa hoo". Indeed, in Anderson's own words, "it's got you clappin', got you shakin' your wrists". Thematically, A New Morning's lyrics are--to paraphrase Oscar Wilde--the imagination of a man gazing at the stars from the gutter; Anderson's usual but unique ruminations on the dichotomy between the cardboard and concrete of city life mundanity, where the CCTV is "watching you every day" and credit-cards offer short-term escapism, and a parallel world of Dynasty, lifestyle magazines and "ascending socialites", best evidenced on the likes of "Beautiful Loser". Potential hit singles abound, particularly when loving the lady aliens of the future on the album's most Bowie-eque moment "Astrogirl" or on the new Suede classic "One Hit to the Body". Here, evidently, is a band unwilling to let self-development stand in the way of choruses which are emphasised to the point of brazen contrivance, but then Suede are possibly more content to curry favour with radio-dial twiddlers than fashion columnists. A New Morning is a shameless pop record. Thankfully, it's an excellent shameless pop record. --Kevin Maidment
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