Suede – Antidepressants (Live) Review

Their latest work was likely the best of their reunion. What was meant to be a one-off spectacle has evolved into a decade-long experience of new music and wilder styles. Autofiction is a brilliant piece from Suede, a personable and heavy-hitting album which still rivals their heyday works. Continuing the trend and feel of their latest album with Antidepressants, a new song debuted at a series of live shows, it sounds like the band is willing to maintain a stiff openness with their audience. Rightly so. Brett Anderson found a new route through to the heart with his work on Autofiction, and with the band sounding as slick and composed as they are, it makes sense to continue the momentum with new music. When Antidepressants will be released, nobody can know for sure, but the live performances of the song give us a glimpse into what should be a bright future for the band.  

Confirmation of a new record on the way and a tease of new material is the way to go with Suede. What a performance this one makes for and it reflects well on the band that they learned from the best bits of Autofiction. Within this latest piece is a sincerity carried over from their previous release with the same venomous edge which gives Suede the advantage over their contemporaries. Though listeners are a ways off hearing the new album, as Suede were still writing it as of this summer, the first snippet of finished material is a powerhouse. Antidepressants makes for a glorious, clap-a-long piece of bold new sound. Suede has offered a grand consistency and it is from the lower octave of their frontman. A man who has accepted the changed range and not only leaned into it, but made it work for the classics as well as the new material.  

Little flourishes like this make all the difference, especially when compared to those artists careering on and claiming to hold the same voice as their heyday. We have all seen the Frankie Vallie vocal dubs, and these are the heartbreaking realities for some fans. But for Suedeheads, this track offers new avenues of usually slick Anderson imagery. Back avenues once filled with love and now cooled off from the passions it once saw, Antidepressants offer joy as a memory. It can be rekindled, that much is clear from sweating frontman Anderson and the tightly collected instrumental flurry. From a sweet guitar solo from Richard Oakes to the steady beat of percussion heard backing lyrics of seeing someone happy, this new track has a lot going for it. 

All we can do now is wait to hear what the final project sounds like. Antidepressants are a snippet. It could all change from here and be something unique and different to the experience heard here. But for what it is at this moment, these tones and trade-offs of life’s battlefield are a great joy. Suede has maintained a consistency to their recent sound, a macabre take with an accessibly charming moment within serving as a light at the end of the tunnel. This latter bit is crucial. A song like Antidepressants cannot stand on joy alone and for Suede this means subverting the highs and heading to the root cause of its eponymous prescription. Sharp stuff as ever, and if we are to believe Anderson, there is more to come.