Spectreview: SAULT – 5 & 7

-YELLOW-

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Let’s kick off 2020 right, by covering music that came out in 2019!

Really though, these two albums are exceptions as much as they are exceptional. Early May’s 5 and late September’s 7 flew under the radar for so many people (including myself) for a ton of reasons, not the least of which is the band’s almost total lack of self promotion. No band members hunched nonchalantly on the side of a burger joint, no heartfelt bio that mentions that time the bassist beat cancer, not even a full list of accredited musicians. All you get is two stark, similarly allusive cover arts adorning each of their albums. In the final year of the 2010’s, that’s almost unheard of. It’s also a huge advantage if the music is strong enough to proliferate on word of mouth alone, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. If anything, SAULT’s debut efforts are either a testament to the limits of image or a reassurance that, for all the concerns of a diluted market and a truncated global attention span, the music still matters.

No information means we have to fill in the blanks ourselves, but what 5 and 7 do so well is take advantage of how scatterbrained our current tastes have become. These albums jump brazenly from one genre to the next while maintaining a continuity of feel; you never forget that you’re listening to one band and not a compilation of various artists. On 5, that manifests in the irresistible Afrobeat-influenced party bops “Up All Night” and “Don’t Waste My Time” that lead into the bedroom-indie funk of “Why Why Why Why Why”, the slow soul jam of “Masterpiece” and the chicken-picked, softly bubbling “Think About It“. 7 operates similarly but in a more streamlined and consistent fashion, though it burns a little less bright comparatively even if the surging opener “Over” is one of the best pieces here. Together, they showcase a verifiable treasure trove of unoffensive, mildly political party hits designed to be enjoyed by as many people as possible; one can imagine SAULT’s music beginning to infiltrate the mainstream as slyly as Khruangbin’s two years ago.

Most strikingly, 5 and 7 are albums filled with music that comes from everywhere but have no exact place. It’s the musical equivalent of a misremembered past, nostalgia that feels inspiring instead of enervating. In that sense, it feels like a purposeful decision to leave their discovery up to the public, the canny decision to tie their existence to a previous decade a  sly way to gift us our own little eureka moments. That’s post-genre done right, finally.

Recommended for rooftops and basements.