Album Reviews

Album Review: Saint Etienne – Tiger Bay/Finisterre Deluxe Editions (Heavenly)

By | Published on Thursday 29 April 2010

Saint Etienne

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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