The track shows SUEP at their best - glistening synth pop with Marr-esque jangle, sweet but emotionally incisive. Singer Georgie Stott - also known for being the keyboardist of the recently ended Porridge Radio - is at peak performance, marrying catchy melodies with off-kilter storytelling. Receiving acclaim across BBC 6 Music and the indie press for their ‘car boot sale’ pop music, SUEP rummage through the jumble bin of music history, selecting and reassembling its best parts into something playful, strange and deeply artful. The band are affiliates of the Gob Nation collective - including The Tubs, Sniffany & The Nits, Ex-Void, and others., described by the Guardian as uniting around “a leftfield sensibility, lacerating wit and snotty attitude.” With a slightly darker edge than their delightful EP Shop or last year’s groovy The Rain, Highway II tells the story of hope slamming into disappointment - a Valentine’s date gone wrong. Tears, cigarette breaks, running makeup and snotty sleeves paint a picture of painful emotional dislocation. It comes with an incredible, multilayered dance-routine music video from frequent collaborator, artist Jess Power. Singer Georgie Stott says: “The lyrics for this poured out of me on Valentine’s Day when me and my partner went out on a date in the Limehouse area, over the river from where we lived in Rotherhithe. I got drunk too quickly, he got grumpy, and tears started streaming down my face because I just wanted to have a nice romantic time. We made up in the Canary Wharf Wetherspoons at the end of the night, but I went to have a cigarette before, to get out all my sobs and wrote all the lyrics on my phone in one go. Then at a practice studio we quickly wrote it around some chords I made up in the room.” Forever is a confident debut, a masterpiece of modern indie songcraft. Across the album SUEP dip into country, synthpop, garage rock, post punk, and pub rock, but always retain their signature penchant for melodic hooks, snappy structures and straight-to-the-heart lyrics. Artfully unpretentious, the album was recorded by friend Matt Green, best known for his work with The Tubs, and mixed by Mike O’Malley of the band caroline. Led by Georgie Stott and Joshua Harvey, SUEP have become fixtures of south-east London’s underground through a series of shared living spaces, improvised studios and DIY venues. Now with George Nicholls (The Tubs, Joanna Gruesome, GN Band), William Deacon (PC World), and Louis Forster (The Goon Sax, Expiry) completing the line up, their debut is finally on its way. Georgie met car-boot-camera-salesman Joshua aged 18 in Winchester. Forming an instant bond, they proceeded to spend 72 hours together chatting and laughing, before forming a punk band with 2 friends. When Georgie went to university in Brighton, Joshua ended up living rent free on the floor of her squalid, now demolished, East Slope dorm-room for the entire year. They spent their time driving around the hills of Sussex, going to boot sales and listening to music very loudly on the speaker he’d hooked up to his creaking Morris Minor. The duo started experimenting with playing each other’s songs under the name ‘SUEP’ after moving into the Pupil Referral Unit - a property guardianship that once housed wayward adolescents. An early formulation of the band fell apart after various breakups led to a member escaping to Australia, but after moving to London they soon locked in with Nicholls, Deacon and now-departed original bassist Oliver Chapman. During this era, Georgie and Josh lived in the Red Lion Boys Club - an ex-youth centre that hosted art exhibitions, raves and their weekly practices. Georgie lived illegally in a cupboard, just large enough for a double bed, and working as an early morning bakery delivery girl, while Joshua lived on a mezzanine platform he built out of scaffolding - the floor beneath full of obscure electronics and musical detritus. It’s in the echoey expanse of the Boys Club sports hall that the 2022 EP Shop was recorded, and in which the songs of Forever were first honed. Lead vocals on the album are shared between Georgie (7 tracks), Joshua (2 tracks) and Oliver (1), and a spirit of easygoing collaboration exudes through every track - no member overplaying, everyone slotting in for the greater whole. Forever is a glimpse into one of the best bands on the scene, not fitting into any trend, but also never fading into obscurantism - SUEP are a band that wear a joie de vivre loosely but fashionably. Now is their time to shine. “To be filed under ‘perfect pop music.’” - Marc Riley, BBC6“SUEP playfully subvert every little life-struggle into cohesively winsome tunes.” - The Quietus“SUEP deconstruct pop tropes in order to find a fresh space to assert themselves.” – Clash
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