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Mar 27, 2024 By Mark Redfern

Bernard Butler was the guitarist in Britpop legends Suede on their first two albums and was also in McAlmont & Butler, among other projects, but he’s just announced his first new solo album in 25 years, Good Grief, and shared its first single, “Camber Sands.” Good Grief is due out May 31 via 355 Recordings. Check out the single below, followed by the album’s tracklist. Above is the cover artwork.

In 2022, Butler teamed up with acclaimed actress Jessie Buckley for the album, For All Our Days That Tear The Heart. He was a founding member of Suede and played on 1993’s self-titled debut and 1994’s all-time classic Dog Man Star (as well as their many amazing B-sides of the era). After leaving Suede he released two albums as part of the musical duo McAlmont & Butler alongside singer David McAlmont. In 2004 Butler reunited with Suede’s Brett Anderson to form The Tears, who released one album, 2005’s Here Come the Tears. He’s also worked as a producer with a variety of artists. But Butler has only ever released two solo albums, 1998’s People Move On and 1999’s Friends and Lovers.

Butler had this to say about the album in a statement: “For a good while, I was scarred, and I was scared. I was happily distracted and joyously involved with so much music. I realized just being there was more than I had ever hoped for. I gave a lot to other people but realized that my story was defined by what I was, rather than what I am. I set myself a modest commercial goal, an expectant creative one: Perform to 10 people without being bottled, then find 11 the next night. Thus began the undoing of my own embarrassment. I would write as I thought and sing as I wrote until the bottles fly. And so the songs arrived.

“For years and years, I have drawn straight lines from North London to every coastline I could see. To life-worn Londoners, escape is the dream and return most likely. The story I found was not the sea but the journey. Camber Sands, Mersea Island, Dunwich, or a dozen more horizons of possibility, the sea and the seawalls, and the endless return to face the city. ‘Camber Sands’ is a love song—we flee the past, the present, ourselves, to survive, to defy. The loneliest music of the resolute, the half-light, and the saddest tunes.”

Good Grief Tracklist: