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Album Reviews
Album Review: Saint Etienne – Tiger Bay/Finisterre Deluxe Editions (Heavenly)
By Marc Samuels | Published on Thursday 29 April 2010
Next up in the Great Saint Etienne Reissue Programme are albums from 1994 and 2002. The lush ‘Tiger Bay’, their folk album, remains a curious but compelling mix of acoustic laments and electronic odysseys (either technofied by Underworld’s production or dubbed-out by Birmingham’s Original Rockers). It also includes three of their best singles (‘Pale Movie’, ‘Hug My Soul’ and ‘Like A Motorway’) and has aged remarkably well.
2002 ‘Finisterre’, meanwhile, was a return to form after two slightly underwhelming albums. A love/hate letter to London, it has everything you’d want from a Saint Etienne album – brilliant, fizzy pop, oddball instrumental experimentation, humour (courtesy of Michael Jayston’s voiceover), and, like ‘Tiger Bay’, a nod to the de rigeur dancefloor sounds of the day (in this case, electroclash).
Both albums feature a host of curios on their respective accompanying bonus discs; ‘Tiger Bay’ being served well in particular by a couple of classic b sides (‘My Christmas Prayer’, ‘I Buy American Records’), whilst ‘Finisterre’ is worth hearing alone for the perfect pop of ‘Fascination’ and the astonishing Dr Who-themed ‘There There My Brigadier’. MS
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