Listen "Out"
- by Jason Agan Drewry
Music Critic
Saint Etienne – International
After a long career as one of the UK’s preeminent pop-pastiche groups, the indie stalwarts bid adieu in style on their 13th and final album.
The trio, consisting of Sarah Cracknell, Pete Wiggs, and Bob Stanley, has always been rather understated, so there’s no grandstanding here even though International does touch on so many career highlights. After a career that saw them evolve their smart, vaguely nostalgic, danceable London slice-of-life vignettes beyond dancefloor-ready pop into soundtracks, books, and films, Saint Etienne have managed to culminate their creative journey in a smart, stylish album that melds dance music’s energy with romanticized feelings of longing, optimism, and nostalgia.
Standouts include the icy synthpop duo with Vince Clarke, Two Lovers; the stark acid jazz of Take Me To The Pilot; the triphop-inspired Fade, the Pet Shop Boys-flavored Dancing Heart, and the late 80s dancepop confection Save It For a Rainy Day. What an exuberant, devastating, perfect farewell.
Patti Smith – Horses (50th Anniversary)
The godmother of punk releases an expansive, remastered version of the album, drawn from the original masters, which also features previously unreleased outtakes, live recordings, and Smith’s 1975 RCA audition tape.
The album remains arguably one of the greatest of all time and a landmark of outsider art, a potent brew of poetic, literary depth and punk intensity whose influence is still felt across rock ‘n roll today. Horses is considered a key inspiration for the punk movement, and rightly so. It has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Recording Registry. The legendary first lines of the album, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine,” remain provocative and immediate half a century after Smith first snarled them.
A 50th anniversary tour will find Smith performing the album in its entirety across the globe, and a concert at Carnegie Hall will feature various artists like Michael Stipe and Karen O, among others, performing Horses tracks.
King Princess – Girl Violence
The indie darling returns with their third album in six years on the alluring and playful Girl Violence.
Mikaela Straus, aka King Princes, could have made something run of the mill to satiate the music industry machine, but managed instead to – perhaps most startingly of all – to expose listeners to the fact that Straus was actually stripping away their artist persona – evidenced most blatantly on the blistering RIP KP – in an act of shedding one’s skin. This transformational rebirth informed the record’s themes – breaking away from relationships, from cities, from record labels.
Girl Violence is brazen and exciting. Jarring melodies abound, harmonies clash, and guitars saturate the songs until the speakers nearly burst. As Straus sings in the opening title track, “Nobody mentioned that girls can be violent.” It’s a defiant declaration of agency and taking up space in an era when it’s needed more than ever.
Buckingham Nicks (Self-Titled)
After more than half a century, comes the first-ever reissue of the near-forgotten 1973 classic by Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, which predated their addition to Fleetwood Mac.
Actually, it’s this album that landed the duo the gig in the now near-mythic “final form” classic lineup. The reissue draws from the original analog master tapes from the recording sessions at the storied Sound City Studios in LA.
The record, mostly ignored upon its initial release, became a musical footnote shortly thereafter when the then-couple joined the juggernaut supergroup and went on to become legends.
Even 52 years on, the album remains utterly compelling – particularly given their ages at the time of its recording (Nicks at 19 and Buckingham at a mere 18), and it’s clear as day why Mick Fleetwood became smitten with the talented pair upon hearing it. Fans of the 1970s-era Mac will be delighted with this gem.
The Gayly. 10/19/2025 @ 4:55 p.m. CST.