SOME 23-years after their Mercury-winning debut, Suede have perhaps produced their finest work to date.
Critical acclaim has been heaped on Night Thoughts, the band's sixth studio album, and it is well deserved.
Brett Anderson's gothic choirboy vocal soars once more over 12 tracks, with guitars and strings creating a cathedral of sound for serious contemplation.
The issues are deep; depression, ageing, doubt, fear, love and loss.
From the off, with opener When You Are Young, it feels like familiar territory: a beautiful, mournful piece of melancholia that is uncomfortably nostalgic.
And there are plenty other perfectly dark moments to melt into, ballads such as Tightrope and I Can't Give Her What She Wants will not disappoint.
But Suede have always had a frenetic energy about them too, and that remains, most obviously on Like Kids.
There's an old-style charm too in designing a record of 12 songs that are supposed to be listened to in that exact running order, where Anderson and co dictate where the relief comes from the darkness and not a shuffle setting on the iPod.
Suede play Leeds O2 Academy on Sunday, February 14
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