International is Saint Etienne’s 13th album. It is their last. According to the promotional material, it was written while recording their last album, 2021’s I’ve Been Trying to Tell You. The trio – Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs – must have known back then they were planning to bow out.
Where I’ve Been Trying to Tell You was blurred, gauzy, low to mid-tempo and impressionistic, its counterpart is often up-tempo and avowedly poppy. Both albums, though, are shot-through with reflectiveness and melancholy. Underlining this, Cracknell ambivalently declares “looking back I could be worse, I could be better too” during “Brand New me.” “The Last Time,” the final track, finds her musing “now I’m really glad we made the trip… 30 odd years later… we’re not…