Saint Etienne Finisterre / Tiger Bay (Commercial Marketing)
4/5
By: Tom Hocknell
If you love pop music, then Saint Etienne are a band you just know you’d get on with in the pub. They are seemingly music fans foremost, and music makers second; and it works. Consequently they understand the importance of b-sides, alternate takes, bonus tracks, remixes and other projects, such as the recent, glistening re-imagining of their debut Fox Base Beta, by Richard X. While we can’t pretend their comprehensive rerelease programme resonates with the importance of unearthed Beatles songs, recent Blur seven inches, or unreleased Frankie Goes To Hollywood mixes, they are fascinating nonetheless. Last year it was the turn of their seminal debut, Fox Base Alpha, and the patchy compendium Continental, and in this second wave we find their 3rd album, Tiger Bay, with their 6th, 2002’s Finisterre.
Tiger Bay is oft- considered one of their masterpieces, a heady mix of electro-folk, before Goldfrapp mined a similar vein. It was named after the area in Wales, or more likely, knowing their love for cultural reference, the 1959 new-wave film of the same name. This obsession with popular culture sometimes results in their songs coming across as overly knowing, pulling a wink at the cost of the heart.
While this is generally unfair, it is evidenced by the voiceover between tracks on Finisterre, which contrary to received wisdom, is actually the stronger album of the two. Finisterre refers to an area once familiar to listeners of the shipping news, which was deleted (or rather renamed Fitzroy) in the same year as the album. Meaning ‘end of earth’, it echoes with poetic, historical significance. Despite this, London is seldom far away, and they are probably the only band to have inadvertently written London’s A-Z, the musical. Finisterre’s contribution towards that is ‘Primrose Hill’ (while Tiger Bay’s bonus disc adds an instrumental ‘Highgate Road Incident’). It was a return to their top 40 smash hit days, embracing an easy pop confidence on ‘Action’ and ‘Amateur’, while ‘Soft Like Me’ flirted with hip-hop through guest rapper Wildflower. (I think) somewhere in their back catalogue is an attempt at a world cup song, but they come closest here, with the title track’s coda of terraced-chants, which following the priceless pay off ‘I believe in Donovan over Dylan/in love over cynicism, is a career highlight.
Their 3rd album, Tiger Bay, came at an unsettled time for the band, following which they took a break, and managed to miss at least two (relatively) big hits from its track listing, the Tim Burgess/Sarah Cracknell duet of ‘I Was Born On Christmas Day’, (collated here on disc 2) and ‘He’s on the Phone’. In places it is a little dated, such as ‘Urban Clearway’s bontempi take on house rhythms, and Sarah Cracknell’s debut song-writing contributions on the string-led, but slightly frantic ‘Hug My Soul’. The Spanish guitar of Pale Movie remains half realised, but ‘Like a Motorway’s crisp electronica impresses, as does the elegance of ‘Marble Lions’, is a strong reminder of St Etienne being at their strongest when 3 song ideas are squeezed into one.
The bonus disc of Tiger Bay has a number of ‘finds’, such as the ‘lost sequel’ to ‘Mario’s Café’, ‘Black Horse Latitude’, which despite its slightly laboured ‘rock’ chords, shines with a disco piano breakdown and the date stamping, yet timeless, couplet, ‘is Michael Jackson’s Dangerous as Bad as people say?”. The additions aren’t perfect, but the blander moments, such as ‘I’ll Miss You When I’m Gone’, are easily compensated by highlights such as the re-harmonised Kid Loco mix of Finisterre’s ‘Stop, and Think It Over’, which demands immediate download. In fact, it is Finisterre’s bonus disc, such as the tuneful ‘Seven Summers’, the drifting guitar lines of ‘Shock Corridor’ and the Lee Hazelwood cover featuring a duet with Nathan Bennett (from Bridge and Tunnel), which confirms this was the birth of their purple patch which continues through 2008’s Tales of Turnpike Lane to last year’s ‘This Is Tomorrow’ single. If their next album continues with trend, we’re in for a treat.
Artists in this article: Saint Etienne
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