Saint Etienne – International review

Few things trigger your cynic-o-meter than a band saying that so and so album is their last. It’s the musical career equivalent of a politician telling you that they aren’t lying, but what if that band is Saint Etienne, a trio who’ve long occupied a peerless conjunction smack bang in the centre of a Venn diagram made up of electonica and pop?

You take them at their word, of course. Each of Sarah Cracknell, Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley have freely indulged themselves in diversions, cul-de-sacs and solo projects galore in the last thirty five years, meaning that there’s no surly reunion here being followed by a blocked your number final chapter of mediocrity.

Instead, International is both a return to and slight 2025-ing of what many would recognise them as doing best. If their last record The Night had been more esoteric in form, leaning prominently on ambient drones and found sounds, here in working with the likes of Tim Powell (Xenomania) there’s an obvious desire to mine pop’s seam again.

That combination throws up a pair of winners in He’s Gone and especially the floor ready Dancing Heart, but other team ups Glad (Tom Rowlands), Take Me To The Pilot (Paul Hartnoll) and Sweet Melodies (Erol Alkan) also all bear impressive fruit. A last stand to be rightly proud of, it’s however left to Confidence Man‘s techno cheese queen Janet Planet to predictably steal the show with Brand New Me, a (Sort of) baton passing that everyone can get behind.

You can read a full review here.