Named after the French football team AS Saint Etienne - rather than the city in which they’re based - you could certainly be forgiven for thinking that it was the latter that was actually the case, given what a European flavour there’s always been to Saint Etienne’s sound. Over the course of a career that has lasted close to twenty five years, at this point, the Croydon outfit have rewritten the rules of alternative dance, blending pop sounds with house affectations in order to make their own sonic lane. They’ve released eight studio albums to date and maintained a steady level of commercial success - two of their early nineties albums, 1993’s So Tough and 1994’s follow-up Tiger Bay cracked the top ten in the UK, at numbers seven and eight respectively on the albums chart - and their cult fanbase continues to pack out their gigs, both in the UK and on the continent.
They remain a flamboyant live proposition, too, with their standard rock band setup used in unorthodox ways - listen to their washed-out bass sounds, for instance - and Sarah Cracknell a genuinely enthralling frontwoman, with her energetic presence often balanced against her sultry, laid-back vocals; there’s nobody quite like Saint Etienne on the live circuit today.
Don Toliver
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