After three and a half decades together, with a career spanning a dozen albums, folktronic pioneers Saint Etienne have decided to hang up their dance floor-soaked boots. The band’s thirteenth and final album, ‘International’, set for release on the 5th of September via Heavenly Recordings, is a poignantly bittersweet endeavour. Harnessing both nostalgic anecdotes and soundscapes from their early career, alongside invigorating breakbeats, ‘International’ is an album that is equally at home in the bedroom or on the dance floor. A final hurrah from a band who not only survived and endured the 90s, but helped to define it.
Formed in 1990 and consisting of Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley, and Pete Wiggs, Saint Ettiene’s career has been a flourishing musical matrimony between swinging sixties grooves and acid-house beats. With their 1991 debut album ‘Foxbase Alpha’ garnering critical acclaim and a Mercury Prize nomination, the London-based three-piece were immediately poised to take the independent scene by a sonic storm.
A genre-defying discography followed: 1993’s ‘Tiger Bay’ saw folk emboldened by techno rhythms, 1998’s ‘Good Humour’ is the love child of acoustics and handbag house, and last year’s ’The Night’ is a mature masterclass in immersive ambience. Yet with ‘International’, the curtain is set to descend on Saint Etienne, with Stanley heralding the album as a “natural conclusion… it’s one closing act that ties the loose ends up”. With the loose ends hemmed, ‘International’ stands up as a heartfelt celebration of Saint Etienne’s past melodies and collaborators- a band seemingly truly at peace with their life’s work.
‘International’ is an audible scrapbook of Saint Ettiene’s 35-year excursion through pop. With its contents seamlessly shifting between sophisticated obscurity, darting acid-soaked grooves and heartwarming tales of romanticism, the band’s final instalment is set to spark nostalgic smiles amongst Saint Ettiene’s seasoned fanbase. Opening with the shimmering single ‘Glad’, ‘International’ immediately welcomes the listener into a sunny, 90s nostalgia-drenched embrace. The first track to be lifted from the album and featuring Jez Williams of Doves on guitar, as well as being co-produced and written with Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers, ‘Glad’ boasts bold beats and a polished production.
Sitting duly alongside the album’s buoyant opener, the proceeding contents similarly bathe in lapping nostalgia. ‘Dancing Heart’ bubbles with synths and enclosing touching lyrics of ‘this life has had its high points’, whilst ‘The Go Betweens’, featuring Haircut 100’s Nick Heyward, resembles vintage Saint Etienne. The album’s sunshine pinnacle, however, is Cracknell’s duet with Janet Planet of Confidence Man in the positively jubilant ‘Brand New Me’. Uplifting lyrics and an earworm of a chorus sit atop a bed of bright brass horns, with Cracknell’s and Planet’s velvet vocals uniting delightfully. Reminiscent of the band’s revered hit ‘Nothing Can Stop Us’, ‘Brand New Me’ is an album standout.
‘International’ is similarly interspersed with lashings of rave energy and pulsating basslines. The album’s second single, the mysterious ‘Take Me To The Pilot’, is a trip into a synth-laden soundscape, with the track boasting contributions from Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll and Xenomania’s Tim Powell. In a similar electronic vein, ‘Save It For A Rainy Day’ is a fun-filled three minutes, with some toe tapping and head bopping being inevitable outcomes.
A hallmark of Saint Ettiene’s discography is wistfully intricate narrations of love or loves lost, and on this front, ‘International’ is no exception. ‘Two Lovers’, written with Vince Clarke, is a layered, almost futuristic soundtrack of doomed romanticism. On balance, the swirling ‘Sweet Melodies’, featuring Erol Alkan, is the blissfully hypnotic sound of a long summer night in the city, while the romantic ‘Fade’ acts as a soft and gentle caress after the all-consuming grooves of ‘Save It For A Rainy Day’.
As the album reaches its tail end, ‘International’ flitters between the shadow-shrouded, 70s noir number ‘Why Are You Calling’ and a further album standout, the ecstatic ‘He’s Gone’. Featuring probing of piano house, ‘He’s Gone’ is an audible, repeatable rush of youthful elation.
Yet ‘International’s final instalment, ‘The Last Time’, harkens back to their very first release. ‘The Last Time’, with its spurts of saxophone and poignant lyricism, is a fitting final act as the curtain closes Saint Etienne’s 35-year career. Of the decision to say goodbye, vocalist Sarah Cracknell stated:
“We all have different reasons for why it’s time to say goodbye,but for me I always wanted to finish on a high, I didn’t want to dribble off. We wanted this to be a peak. There’s going to be a lot of tears.”
And dribble off Saint Etienne did not. ‘International’ is a truly earnest and fitting departure for a band who have ignited the independent music scene for the best part of four decades. Encapsulating a series of sparkling elements from their previous endeavours, ‘International’ acts as a bittersweet yet celebratory bookend in Saint Etienne’s discography. Twelve songs that sincerely shout that the band are not happy that it’s over, but happy that it happened.