Saint Etienne
International
HEAVENLY
No one splits up after 35 years together and means it to be amicable. Everyone is angry when things break apart—save for, seemingly, the cast of the long-running indie-pop production that is Saint Etienne, the London-based trio of Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley, and Pete Wiggs who forever melded the ever-shifting mood of club culture with their own wiggy yet tasteful Swinging-Sixties touches and danceable decorum. Like Sparks, somehow, through all manner of trend, Saint Etienne simply got better with each recording, spanning from their epic three-album run in the early ’90s up through their consistent 21st century works. They never went one ounce over the line of what elegant, electronic-based pop should be. Why quit the Saintly band when they’re making continuously better music each time out is for Cracknell, Stanley, and Wiggs to answer.
International is the sound of this trio going out with a loud, still chic-sounding bang—a party bus filled with old friends (Nick Heyward, The Chemical Brothers, Doves, Orbital, Vince Clarke), new pals (Erol Alkan, Confidence Man, Xenomania), and fresh, glittering sounds for a proper send-off. Sure, the core trio hold a certain nostalgia for their 1990s indie-pop roots, with Cracknell’s vocal and lyrical tone set for a sugar-sweet coating with a deceptively intimate, ruminative, and melancholy center. Not surprisingly, opener “Glad” goes happily off-the-rails to start, proving they could take their origin story to the nth degree and compete with the Charli XCX/Addison Rae crowd if pushed.
But as this is a closing-out-on-top final chapter, the Saints would rather have fun than do business, and instead luxuriate in dub housing on “Why Are You Calling” and do the shore-bound thing on the sandy dance of “Brand New Me,” with its quick-to-reminisce lyric “Looking back I could be worse, but I could be better, too” tossed off for lingering effect. Although the trio find continued innovation with the gilded-gold soul sounds of “Save It for a Rainy Day” and its tear-moistened laments, they save a hint of their usual sarcastic humor for (what else) the final track of International, “The Last Time,” and Cracknell’s Adam Ant joke: “I’m really glad we made the trip / Thirty odd years later / We’re not the dandy highwaymen you might expect to find.” With that, Saint Etienne make you miss them even before they’ve fully disappeared.
