W/e 12/09/25 - Red Rum Club, Saint Etienne, Shallowater, Suede, Alice in Chains

Congrats to Suede who snatch the top spot for the year, ending Car Seat Headrests’s 18 week run.

They just miss out on a top 10 overall spot by the tiniest of margins – just 0.1 more from any of us would have taken them above Ash’s 2023 offering.

Impressive none the less. They join Jack White with having 2 albums in our top 20.

At the other end, Shallowater land in the bottom 10 for the year.

Paul takes his first 😀. Phil has his 2nd in 3 weeks.

Alice In Chains didn’t blow too many skirts up and sit with Genisis and Aztec Camera on the classics.

Guy

Red Rum Club – Cracking guitar based Indie. A cross-over of Cast and the Arctic Monkeys. Perhaps a bit derivative but as we often say, if you copy the right people it still sounds good! – 7.9

Shallowater – Wow. This was tedious. Just a load of noodley nonsense. Most of the tracks never really got going and just didn’t hang together. The last track was maybe the best of a bad bunch - 5

St Etienne – Enjoyable indie pop. Sarah Cracknell’s got a lovely voice. Glad is a great track. But perhaps it wafted a bit elsewhere. I didn’t expect Nick Heywood to make a cameo either. – 7.2

Suede – Another absolute cracker – a little like there most recent offering. Plenty of great tunes including Disintegrate and Trance State, which has a bit of an 80s indie feel to it. One of the best albums of the year imho – 8.3

Alice in Chains – Not my cup of tea. Too heavy and long – 6

TOTW – American Nights and English Mornings – Red Rum Club

Andy

Red Rum Club - This started off sounding like it was going to be a bit of a storming blues rocker but it soon devolved into Arctic Monkeys pastiche, so much so that when they plagiarised a QOTSA riff I had to double check Josh Homme wasn’t producing. Throw in some Zutons and you get a standard bit of indie 5.5

Shallowater - I liked a lot of this musically but want massively keen on the vocals. OK overall I guess 5.5

Saint Etienne - Enjoyable electronic pop with Sarah’s lovely vocals, hard to go wrong 7.5

Suede - Cracking stuff as usual, if a touch down on their previous effort (which I was convinced came out last year but is from 2022 😱) 8

TotW - Broken Music for Broken People by Suede

Alice In Chains - Good album if a bit heavy on the smack anthems. Staley had a cracking voice RIPIP 7

Phil

Red Rum Club 6.5

Not your average indie. Brisk and dramatic, with inventive use of trumpet. Someone’s baby isn’t coming home is genuinely chilling. But still, for all that, not a band I’d bother to watch if they were on at the Great Escape.

Shallowater 6

This reminds me of a lot of forgotten alternative American guitar bands of the 90s - anyone remember Bedhead? Wheat? It’s hard to imagine an English band sounding like this. I picture tumbleweeds rolling by the windows of the rehearsal room as the guitarist noodles along, trying to locate a tune – oh hang on, he’s accidentally hit one of the FX pedals. I’d like to defend this but even I have standards when it comes to grungey guitar bands.

Saint Etienne 6

I found a lot of this dull but Why are you calling has a great churning keyboard riff and Sweet melodies is pretty good too. But they don’t save the album for me.

Suede 7.25

Richard Oakes is the star turn here. He invokes his inner John McGeoch and Keith Levene with some stunning guitar work. Brett Anderson’s vocals are surprisingly low in the mix. But it doesn’t matter – you can still hear him.

TOTW – Suede – Life is endless, life is a moment

Classic

Alice in Chains 6.5

Maximum heaviosity! Hard going at time with ponderous tempos, dense production and grim lyrics. But when they let a bit of light into the murk, as on Rooster, they’re more approachable.

Sam

Red Rum Club : Nice slice of bouncy Scouse indie . Yes they sound like a few other bands but I enjoyed it . 7

Shallowwater: who ‘produced’ this ? What a mess . 4

Saint Etienne: Sarah’s voice is so gorgeous. Lovely pop album . 7.7

Suede : They are rocking all over ! Bit of U2 in there . Excellent. 8.2

ToTW : could have been anything from Suede but I’ll go for Antidepressants.

Alice in chains : one of the cornerstones of grunge . Released as I entered my final year at Nottingham. Incredibly powerful collection of angst, dark and brooding . Still blows my socks off . 9

Simon

Red Rum Club: as Phil said, the trumpet gave it a different spin to your usual indie fare (sort of thing I might have expected from the Beta Band) and I did start to appreciate it more second time round - the lyrics were rather droll as well. 7

Shallowater: this was all rather uninspiring - the songs are mostly dirgy and ponderous albeit occasionally brought to life by a mid-track blast of guitars. Doesn't rescue it though. 5

Saint Etienne: always had plenty of time for the London trio and whilst this isn't their best it's a fitting way for them to sign out - sun-kissed and dreamy as expected but there's also a melancholic air and some wistful lyrics to say goodbye with. 7.5

Suede: wouldn't consider myself the biggest Suede fan but this is tremendous - the Cure/Siouxsie-style gothic guitars are fantastic and there's no let up in the quality across the whole album. Not many of the early '90s intake can still be sounding this good 30+ years on. 8.3

Alice in Chains: appreciate that there's an audience out there for this kind of stuff but it definitely doesn't include me - the grunge is too heavy for my liking and it seemed to go on forever. 5.5

TotW: Suede - Antidepressants

Paul

Red Rum Club - Buck (7.5)

Really liked that, right up my street. Bit of a hint of Alex Turner and Arctic Monkeys on a couple of the tracks but rattled along nicely. Liked the occasional trumpet contribution. Would check them out at a festival!

Shallowater (5.5)

Didn’t get on with this particularly well, the 7 min long tracks didn’t help, seemed pretty self-indulgent.

Suede (8.5)

Big fan of suede and the this is a good Suede album even if it doesn’t really do anything particularly new. But non the less my favourite album of the week.

Saint Etienne - International (7.5)

Nice bit of indie pop, not heard much of there more recent stuff but nice vocals and an enjoyable listen for my morning walk in the sun!

Alice in Chains (6)

A new one on me. Well put together but a bit heavy for my tastes so not really my thing.

TOTW - Suede- Broken music for broken people

Justin

Red Rum Club - enjoyable and varied indie rock. Seen them live a couple of times and very good. 7

Shallowwater - I actually liked a lot of this with the MBV and Pixies style guitars 6.9

Suede - no stand out classic tracks but overall a really good dark indie rock album. 7.5

Saint Etienne - Fox Base Alpha is a classic but on the whole I thought a lot of this was a bit weak and twee, but a few tracks rescued it from a bad score 6.5

TOTW Suede - June Rain

Alice in Chains - once past the first track it wasn't terrible, but really not for me this style of rock/metal. 5

Matt

Red Rum Club - 7

Shallowater - 5

Saint Etienne - 7.7

Suede - 8.2

TOTW - Suede, Antidepressants

Mark

Red Rum Club - unmistakable Scouse roots here, everything from Circa Waves to Jake Bugg via The Zutons, The La's, The Coral and Miles Kane, with added mariachi / spaghetti western touches elevating it above the landfill - 7

Shallowater - some nice diverting grungy guitar noise explosions aside, this was just too slow and dreary to really do anything for me - 5

St Etienne - a band I loved from the off but it's been diminishing returns with recent albums so it was good to see they've gone back a bit more upbeat and uptempo for this one, some lovely northern soul / 60s / synth pop stuff - 7

Suede - just the kind of punky glam guitar music I love, I'm a long time fan but it's amazing how good their post reformation albums have been and they can play a whole live set of new stuff and it still be great - 8.5

TOTW - Antidepressants, by Suede

Erol

Red Rum Club - really enjoyable, foot tapping Scouse indie. American Nights etc was the standout out for me. 7.9

Shallowater - Damien Rice meets grunge with occasional screeching. Mixed feelings about this. 5.5

St Etienee - lovely vocals and always enjoyable but on the whole, apart

from my TOTW, I found this a bit too slow paced. Shame, but hats off for having been around for so long. 6.8

Suede - another great offering but, unlike the previous album, there were no super catchy numbers to be found here.

7.5

TOTW - Take me to the Pilot, St Etienne

Jim

Red Rum Club 7

Enjoyed this, zipped along nicely. Reckon they’ve listened to Suck It And See a fair few times.

Saint Etienne 7.5

Miles better than the flacid offering from the end of last year. Opening pair are excellent and there are a handful of tasty upbeat numbers, akin to Goldfrapp and Royksopp, throughout. Shame they didn’t finish on the 90’s piano banger He’s Gone.

Shallowater 5

Occasionally had some oomph, but mostly a shoe-gaze shambles. Avitan the only high point.

Suede 8.5

Relentlessly good. A little darker than previous perhaps with The Cult coming to mind every now and again. Antidepressants and Disintegrate are pretty much perfect.

TOTW – Suede: Disintegrate

Alice in Chains 7

A new one for me. Had more GnR than I was expecting which was OK with me. Could have done with chopping off about a third though.

Annette

Red Rum Club: 7.5

St Etienne: 7.5

Shallowater: 5.5

Suede: 8.5

TOTW: Antidepressants by Suede

Classic:

Alice in Chains - 6.5

Adam

Red Rum Club

Ooosh, a big wallop of energetic indie. Reminders of hey day of mid to late 00’s - got those northern crooner vocals in there and definitely a touch of inspiration of bands from that time. 8

St Etienne

Thought there was some fun electro pop on here. Nice to see the collab with Confidence Man on there. Dancing Heart a solid track. 7

Shallowater

Just not good. Fine with slow then raging/messy guitars but it doesn’t click here. 4

Suede

Would recognise the hit tracks from Suede but never sat down before this for a real listen through of anything. Suitably moody rocking and felt transported back to yesteryear. If there’s a gig going, reckon I’m there. 8

TOTW: Wild - Red Rum Club

Classic

Never really listened to AIC before. Dark, heavy metal. Rock on. 8