***ALBUM OF THE MONTH | September 2020***
SAULT
Untitled (Rise)
Buy via Bandcamp | Forever Living Originals
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SAULT’s Untitled (Black Is) arrived in the nick of time in June of this year and poured soothing salve on the twin wounds of COVID related hardship and the intolerable death of George Floyd (and countless others) at the hands of a thuggish, racist police force gone rogue. Just as their two previous albums 5 and 7 arrived within months or weeks of each other, so Untitled (Black Is) now has an equally unexpected companion just three months later, in the shape of new album Untitled (Rise).
Pausing before pressing play, a thought occurred to me about the new release. During Prince’s golden era, his record label was loath to keep up with his output, preferring instead to avoid saturating the market with material—they feared a drop in the quality of work and a downturn on their investment. What gave me cause to pause was a similar feeling. Untitled (Black Is) had become my soundtrack to the warped, weird times we find ourselves in—how could those feelings be replicated in me so soon afterwards? I feared a dilution of the music and the moments it created in my mind.
I need not have worried one iota though. From the first minute it is clear that this is further evidence of the collective’s brilliance. “Strong” is a tsunami of ideas thrown down like a gauntlet, daring anyone to doubt their abilities. As well as a maelstrom of strings and the bass line rumbling, there is a percussive mastery that runs throughout the album—it is rhythmically irresistible. Here the distorted snap of the snare, the driving cymbal splashes and an intoxicating samba break halfway through make it unforgettable. Lyrically, it picks up where June’s album ended, as Cleo Sol sings: “Worship the skin I’m in ‘cause I love my color . . . Nobody wants to admit that we are the chosen.”
The rhythm is gonna get you, but not before you’ve been uplifted, elevated and assured of a future free from the pain and suffering of a cold, racist world. In a little over six minutes, SAULT manage to demonstrate more excellence than other groups could muster over an album’s length.
On “Fearless,” the ferocity of the strings is only matched by the incessant bump of the bass and reaches its zenith with the hopeful glide of ‘80s synths to the uplifting accompaniment of eternally hopeful lyrics: “Be yourself at all times, don’t be afraid of nothing, nobody / Be fearless / It’s all in your mind.”
One key aspect of the album (like its forebear) is the inspired use of Melisa Young (a.k.a. Kid Sister) on spoken word pieces. Her cadence, enunciation and delivery are perfection at all times. On “Rise” she is a heavenly presence—if she truly woke the world up with her voice and its words of wisdom, it would be a far better place. For the first eighty seconds of “The Beginning & The End” she is the voice of freedom’s fight, elemental goddess of all that is good and leader of warrior women sent to take the world forward to a land of milk and honey. She is genuinely awe-inspiring.
Later though, her wry humor and acid-barbed tongue shine through as she cuts swathes through performative allyship on “You Know It Ain’t.” Each repetition of the titular phrase has slightly different emphasis and a nuanced twist on delivery—each one lands like a dagger from a smiling assassin.
These pieces are interspersed among the rest of the album and add to what is already an extraordinary piece of work. “I Just Wanna Dance” is a tribute to the restorative nature of dance—a way to feel alive even when in the pits of despair and it features a section that is part euphoric breakdown, part acid house interlude before another ridiculously infectious samba groove takes over.
The album excels in providing moments of transcendent power—the oft-heard “Funky Drummer” beat of “Free” feels fresher and funkier than it has for a long time. “Street Fighter” bristles with revolutionary intent and a pride that inspires chest-beating exhortations and “Son Shine” sounds beamed directly from the days of 1980s rare groove records while glorifying the name of God.
In contrast to that shimmering groove comes “Uncomfortable,” which asks the questions of white onlookers to the tumult of the fight for racial equality: “Maybe you’re uncomfortable with the fact we’re waking up / Why do you keep shooting us, how do you turn hate to love?” While a gloomy, morose bass line begets “Scary Times” and its pull-no-punches lyric: “Hear us screaming out ‘thief,’ you took a life / Another one’s gone, a lost soul / That’s why we’re marching in the streets every night.”
Untitled (Rise) finishes in the same way as Untitled (Black Is) did—with a delicious slice of soul. Delicious it may be, but “Little Boy” is gut-wrenching lyrical content enveloped in a sweet soul style. It begins innocuously enough with the song’s title sung by Cleo Sol before it twists to become something else entirely: “Little boy, little boy when you get older / You can ask me all the questions / And I’ll tell you the truth about the boys in blue . . . And the lost truth for those who look like you.”
Beyond the incredible musicianship, production and performances of Inflo, Cleo Sol and Melisa Young though, is one of the cornerstones of soul music—God’s endless love and the belief that salvation will be attained. It’s enough to make a recovering Catholic contemplate the Almighty once more.
In creating two urgent, life-altering albums of such social and emotional heft in such a short space of time, SAULT (that Gilles Peterson recently revealed to be a mysterious acronym) establish themselves both as one of the greatest bands currently working and inspirational leaders of a movement. They have sculpted the soundtrack to a revolution and reflected the struggles that mark our times—if you listen closely enough and shrug off the fear, that revolution might just come.
Notable Tracks: “The Beginning & The End” | “I Just Wanna Dance” | “Street Fighter” | “Strong”
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