Saint Etienne are releasing their final album on 5th September and it's shaping up to be one of their best with some of the freshest production and a collab with Confidence Man to boot along with some other iconic producers! It's available on CD (and 2CD with exclusive mixes), vinyl, cassette and download.

1. Glad

2. Dancing Heart

3. The Go Betweens (with Nick Heyward)

4. Sweet Melodies

5. Save It For A Rainy Day

6. Fade

7. Brand New Me (with Confidence Man)

8. Take Me To The Pilot

9. Two Lovers

10. Why Are You Calling

11. He's Gone

12. The Last Time

Saint Etienne’s International is their final studio album. A dreamlike drift with friends and collaborators, International features cameos from the higher echelons of pop - 80s chart heroes, electro, acid house and all points in-between, from Vince Clarke to Nick Heyward, Confidence Man to Erol Alkan, Chemical Brothers, Orbital, Doves and Xenomania's Tim Powell, through to the lesser known, but equally exhilarating Bradfordians Augustin Bousfield and Flash Cassette. Saint Etienne are the 90s band who never left us, never imploded, and never adhered to clichéd excess. They are a testament to getting along, getting on with creating something new and, of course, getting away with it.

Co-written and produced with Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers, Glad is a sparkling piece of uplifting pop, and incredibly catchy. The song also features Jez Williams from Doves on guitar. Talking about the track, Sarah Cracknell said: “We asked Tom if he had any songs in progress that might suit Saint Etienne and he sent a backing track that he’d been working on with Jez from Doves. We fell in love with it straight away and the top line melody and words for Glad came easy.”

International is very different in style and approach to The Night, but both records are pure Saint Etienne. For International, the trio decided to ask friends, heroes and contemporaries to collaborate with them. That list included Confidence Man, who they discovered were St Et superfans after they played together at Kite Festival in 2022. Brand New Me feels like a rebooted 1991 gem – Nothing Can Stop Us meets Groove Is In The Heart – and features Sarah duetting with Confidence Man’s Janet Planet.

Other collaborators include Erol Alkan (on Sweet Melodies), Vince Clarke (Two Lovers), a duet with Nick Heyward (The Go Betweens) and Paul Hartnoll of Orbital (Take Me To The Pilot) as well as a brace co-written and produced with Tim Powell of Xenomania (Dancing Heart and He’s Gone).

Edited August 6, 2025Aug 6 by lewistgreen

Confidence Man mentioned in their Chill Mix on Radio 1 on Sunday that their collab is coming. The sticker on the artwork confirms it as a single.

I'm really liking how this is shaping up as both singles have been decent so far. I wouldn't say they are quite up their with their very best stand alone work but the approach to this album feels like it will have a lot of interesting influences on it so it definitely has the potential to be one of their best as a whole

The Confidence Man collab is out today

Final album!! As they say in their news email "excited and slightly sad to bring you the news that our final LP 'International' is released today"

This is Brand New Me with Confidence Man:

Edited September 5, 2025Sep 5 by Bjork

Good track, they are definitely going out on a high with some strong material. I've ordered the album from Rough Trade as there is a mini bonus disc of remixes with it from there. I'm quite a collector of theirs and try and get a lot of their Christmas fan club releases, no doubt they've still got loads more stuff in the vault even if they're not putting any more new material out.

I still really loved their album produced during the pandemic, I've Been Trying To Tell You, there were some fascinating samples on there (Honeyz, Natalie Imbruglia...), and it made for such a gorgeous soundscape.

OK I really like this album, it might even be my favourite of their albums as a whole! It's very pop and accessible, some really catchy melodies and gorgeous vocals as ever from Sarah. Talk about saving the best for last!

 

Btw there is already a topic for this in the dance forum, not sure why you created this in the indie forum, they're hardly indie. If anything, I'd put them in the pop forum!

A lovely final album indeed. The singles are great and I like Brand New Me more with every listen. Nice 80s and 90s influences, He's Gone could be from their heyday! Fade is my favourite album track, beautiful strings. I will definitely miss having new music from them.

Saint Etienne are at the right place here as indie pop band - they were always part of the indie spectrum since the earlie nineties. Looking forward to receive "International".

St Etienne are 10000% indie, not sure nowadays but back in the day they were on the little Heavenly label

you cannot get more indie than that

but I agree the album is fantastic, maybe not their best compared to So Tough or Tiger Bay but one of their very best and certainly better than recent efforts

I love take me to the pilot its a proper ear worm and my fave of the tracks.

This thread needs to be merged with the one in the Indie forum (or vice versa)

oh wow they're at #4 in the Mids <3

It's a week for the legends, as Saint Etienne could also secure a first Top 5 project with International (4).

They've had 2 top 10 albums before with So Tough and Tiger Bay.

I got the CD today with the Rough Trade bonus EP, there’s a very special song on that called Walk Away From Her which could have been on the album perhaps over The Go Betweens, which I do like a lot but sounds a little out of place on the project to me.

On 06/09/2025 at 13:09, Bjork said:

St Etienne are 10000% indie, not sure nowadays but back in the day they were on the little Heavenly label

you cannot get more indie than that

They may have been on an indie label but my point was that they don't sound like an "indie" band (possibly with the exception of the Good Humour era when they went a bit guitary), to my ears they've always been pop/dance

3 hours ago, Bjork said:

oh wow they're at #4 in the Mids <3

It's a week for the legends, as Saint Etienne could also secure a first Top 5 project with International (4).

Yeah but that's only because of the missing Spotify data, if you factor that in, they'd probably be sitting at around #10 I imagine, so assuming the data all appears by Friday I think they might just scrape top 20 at a guess? I do hope they can somehow finish top ten though, they always chart much lower than they deserve to.

With 5,050 sales already in the bag staying top 10 looks very likely and if not they wont be far outside but hopefully they stay in.

St Etienne are one of the bands around which the term Britpop was first used. They are very much Indie, much more so than quite a bit of acts in this forum -

Edited September 9, 2025Sep 9 by Severin

And Indie doesn't need necessarily guitars. There is loads of electronica and pop around which is counted as indie.

7 hours ago, DaTilt said:

And Indie doesn't need necessarily guitars. There is loads of electronica and pop around which is counted as indie.

Quite. For those of us who grew up with the Indie charts in the 80s you can be both Pop and Indie as well as much more - Napalm Death, Erasure, Depeche Mode, Nirvana, CRASS, Front 242, The Smiths, S-Xpress, Black Lace, The Shamen, 808 State, Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue - all Indie acts.

It has only been since the mid 90s that the meaning of Indie has come to describe a generic sound. Right about the time the major labels swept in and hoovered up every two-bit guitar band in the wake of Britpop.

Call me old fashioned but I feel the term carried more meaning when it truly meant Independent. Much like the term Alternative, it has lost all relevance.

This was the Indie Chart when St Etienne had their first hit -

23 June 1990

1. 1. 1. the Charlatans - The Only One I Know (Situation 2) video
2. 3. - . Northside - Shall We Take A Trip (Factory) video
3. 2. 3. New Order - World In Motion (Factory) video
4. 7.27. Happy Mondays - Lazyitis (Factory) video
5.12. - . Senseless Things - Is It Too Late? (Decoy) video
6. 9. 6. Ned's Atomic Dustbin – The Ingredients (ep) (Chapter 22) video
7. - . - . Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine - Rubbish (Big Cat) video
8.11. - . The Lemonheads - Different Drum (Roughneck / Fire) video
9. 6. 5. Cud - Hey Wire (Imaginary) video
10.26. 8. The Farm - Stepping Stone (Produce) video

11.18. 2. My Bloody Valentine - Glider (ep) (Creation) video
12. 4.14. Betty Boo - Doin' the Do (Rhythm King) video
13.10.11. Erasure - Star (Mute) video
14.14.13. Don Pablo's Animals - Venus (Rumour) video
15. 5. 4. Depeche Mode - Policy Of Truth (Mute) video
16. - . - . Rhythm Device - Acid Rock (Fro) video
17.13.10. Happy Mondays - Peel Session (Strangefruit)
18. - . - . Saint Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Heavenly) video
19. - . - . Massivo Feat. Tracy - Loving You (Debut) video
20. - . - . Tigertailz - Noise Level Critical (Music For Nations) video

21. - . - . Band Of Holy Joy - Real Beauty Passed Through (Rough Trade) video
22.23.19. Snuff - Flibbiddydibbydob (ep) (Play) video
23.22.12. Ride - Play (ep) (Creation) video
24.17.17. New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Big (Playtime) video
25. 8. 9. Happy Mondays - Step on (Factory) video
26.24.29. The Charlatans - Indian Rope (Dead Good) video
27.21.16. Kylie Minogue - Better the Devil You Know (PWL) video
28.28.18. The Would Be's - I'm Hardly Ever Wrong (Decoy) video
29.30. - . Grant Hart - All Of My Senses (SST) video
30.15. 7. Kitchens of Distinction - Quick As Rainbows (One Little Indian) video

Edited September 9, 2025Sep 9 by Severin