SUEDE : “Dog Man Star” (Nude)

“THAT DIFFICULT second album, me eye!” screams the press release and for once those P.R. johnnies have hit the hammer right on the proverbial. While the Stone Roses have laboured for four years to produce, well, nothing, our floppy-fringed friends have dashed-out a record that finally makes sense of all the hype that greeted their entry into this fab pop world we inhabit.

There’s now’t wrong per se with being derivative but Suede’s debut offering adhered so slavishly to Bowie’s androgynous glam blueprint that they might as well have dropped the pretence and called themselves Jean Geanie. This time round, Brett has rationed the Newley-isms and though still suffering from a severe identity crisis, extended his schizophrenia to take in Ian Hunter and – pause for a spot of reverence here – Scott Walker.