Photo: @saultglobal
It’s amazing how little we still know about the British collective SAULT. This is despite releasing eleven albums over the past five years, exploring soul, blues, and gospel, with dalliances into disco, garage rock, and even choral and contemporary classical.
Releases are generally a surprise, and arrive without singles. Some of them remain on streaming services, some have been removed, some are available in physical form, some not. Proceeds from one record went entirely to charity.
The quality is so high it almost feels trite to say their new album, Acts of Faith, is excellent. Its release continues the trend of bucking convention: it was made available via Wetransfer as a downloadable wav file, then after three days, removed entirely.
The band have played one show, in late 2023, where they performed Acts of Faith from start to finish. A set list was provided to attendees, so these tracks have been identified retroactively (the album was uploaded as one long track).
Things like this are part of the fun, and novelty. The show also included an art exhibition, fashion show, a live orchestra, 100-piece choir, and a warm up slot of African drumming. Reviews in The Guardian and Telegraph were slightly baffled, but awestruck by the ambition.
At that show, the members of Sault retained their anonymity… kind of. It’s long been understood as the project of producer Inflo, with vocalists Cleo Sol, and Kid Sister. Musician Jack Penate has writing credits, as does reggae musician Chronixx, and rapper Little Simz and singer Michael Kiwanuka are affiliated too.
All these people were onstage at their sole performance, semi-disguised. At one point Cleo Sol addressed the crowd, prefacing it with “I’m not supposed to do this…”
Past albums by SAULT have focused on the Black experience in the UK and America, with the third explicitly addressing police brutality, and the murder of George Floyd.
References to spirituality were common on their last few releases, but Acts of Faith, as the name suggests, is entirely centred on it. Titles include ‘Pray For Me’, ‘Signs’, and ‘Set Your Spirit Free’, with lyrics that alternate between detailed and sloganeering; often the case with this band.
The mood stays affirmative: On ‘Turn it Around’ with the refrain “When your life goes inside out, upside down, you can turn it around”. ‘God Will Help You’ has the line “Every day is your chance to grow a little bit”.
It might feel corny, were the music not so consistently good.
SAULT are entirely unique in the modern landscape, shunning anything personality-based in favour of focusing on music alone. It almost feels old fashioned that they trusted the strength of their tunes to catch on, although each member did have a pretty healthy catalogue already, which must have helped with confidence.
A lot of what they do around the music could be labelled a gimmick, but everything on record is so substantive, and enriching, that the gimmicks feel justified.
