The Tears, Refugees

The Tears, Refugees - The first single from the Tears was probably chosen because 1) It's undeniably catchy and 2) It sounds very Suede-y, thereby making the transition from Bernard & Brett as Suede to Bernard and Brett as the Tears. However, my first thoughts were that it sounded like it had come off the sessions for Coming Up (even though Bernard was long gone by then). While it's a magnificent song, combining classic Bernard Butler guitars with Brett's usual poetic flair, it perhaps has produced the expectation from those who haven't had the opportunity to see the band live that the album Here Come the Tears is going to sound like Suede.

Of course, there will be hints of Suede, they are Bernard and Brett, after all, BUT once you get into the b-sides you can see the new directions in terms of subject matter, and the ways in which their songwriting has matured over the last decade. Southern Rain in particular is a fantastic ballad, and Break Away is quite touching as well.

While I wish Brett would stop writing lyrics about smiling and dancing in the rain, rain in general, drifting like leaves and all those similar sorts of things he starting saying all over the place after he stopped using "shaking obscene" and "nuclear" as his favourite descriptive terms, he has always been a fantastically descriptive poet and the overuse of certain imagery doesn't make his songwriting any less effective. Plus it's really nice to hear Bernard writing glammy, stonking, noisy, in-your-face guitar lines.

Basically, the best songwriting partnership since Morrissey and Marr are back, and this isn't even the best they have to offer, so look out world!