They're no saints (Saints And Sinners: Limited Edition - All Saints)

Member Name: CIDDJO

Product:	Saints And Sinners: Limited Edition - All Saints
Date:	06/07/01 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good production, three released singles included

Disadvantages: baaaaaaad lyrical content, all sounds pretty much the same

This the third album from the pop divas didn’t seem to fly quite as high up the charts as their debut ’All Saints’(1998) despite containing the theme tune for much hyped Hollywood blockbuster ‘The Beach’. The four enviably gorgeous temptresses who are the All Saints are: Canadian sisters Natalie and Nicole Appleton (Nicole being the one who gave birth to Liam Gallaghers baby this week), Melanie Blatt, and Shaznay Lewis, the latter of whom undertakes the main song-writing role within the group (they’re a bit on the manufactured side to be labelled a band). The legendary pop producer William Orbit (Madonna) has assisted with a majority of the production and song-writing and it definitely shows - his signature wide and vast stereo image is ever present where Orbit has managed to stick his finger in the pie so to speak.

The All Saints always seem to try to cut into other music genres, especially RnB, instead of getting stuck in the sticky pudding that is Pop. This is one vital element that separates them from a lot of other girlie groups, like what used to be the Spice Girls, who used to be a constant media comparison to the Saints.

‘Pure Shores’ (one), everyone’s holiday 2000 theme tune, is pretty chilled out with a
gently programmed beat that drifts in a conveniently planned direction. The heavily
manipulated vocal harmonies (vocoded - I don’t believe for a minute that they were all
perfectly in tune all of the time) have been carefully and precisely arranged on top of
sweeping sea sound effects, windy guitar licks and of course that give-a-way off beat
electric piano. Thailand with it’s white sandy beaches keeps springing to mind...I can’t think why!

‘All Hooked Up’ is the next ‘gem’ to make its’ appearance. The beat is slightly
heavier than on track one and it creates the impression that they were aiming fo
r some
kind of Hip-Hop feel - unsuccessfully. The lyrics on this song are nothing short of
diabolical, "Doesn’t he know I want class not trash" being a fine example. Well
unfortunately girls it looks like you’ve ended up with the trash part - could this be as a result of a no show by Mr Orbit?

Tracks three, four, seven, and eight all begin with some picked acoustic guitar riff or other which gives me the idea that this is supposed to be some kind of continuos theme that runs throughout the album. It’s a nice (nice being a sickly word that means
absolutely nothing) idea although it does make it difficult to distinguish between the
songs until you become a hardened listener (that’s listening to it more than one
hundred times by the way). The bass line on track four ‘Distance’ is strangely punchy
and funky. I say strange because a common Pop production technique is to blend the
bass into the background with everything else musical so that the vocals can take
centre stage.

‘Black Coffee’ (Five) was the second single from the album to be released and is the
albums party piece - fantastically produced with a perfect pop structure, and
sickeningly ice-cream and choc sauce sweet vocal harmonies singing out the rhyming
poetry style of the lyrics. It feels as though the lyrics were written separately to the music and then squashed together at the end which isn’t an uncommon thing in pop
music production.

Track Six ‘Whoopin Over You’ sounds uncannily similar to Madonna’s ‘Music’ during
the verse and then digresses in to a shoddy, "I’ve heard it a million times and so is vomit worthy". The repetitive ‘Nah nah no’ becomes down right irritating after
hearing it more than once and it made me want to take a hammer to my stereo!
Fortunately for my stereo and in turn
my bank balance, ‘I Feel You’ (Seven) is a
calming, mellow ballad that it is simple yet satisfying. There aren’t too many fancy
frills and the gospel singers really fill out the sound and texturise the piece making it more intense and real.

I’m not even going to discuss ‘Ha Ha’ (track nine) because it annoyed me so much
with it’s ridiculous title and lyrics, definitely a space filler I feel. Track ten ‘Love Is Love’ is slightly reminiscent of the eighties Erasure era with a strong, energetic melody and a lot of powerful crashing metal to metal samples. The earlier tracks just seemed to get lamer and lamer until this almost exciting number jumped out of the bag and I would rate it as one of the strongest tracks on the album.

The title track ‘Saints And Sinners’ (twelve) opts for a rock edge that ends up
sounding like Five’s version of ‘We Will Rock You’! The strongest part of this tune is the title that not so cunningly contains the groups name.

Overall this album is typical of a girl group pop release - the only tracks of any worth have already been released on single and everything else is just there to fill the space, and sounds cheap and trashy despite the fact that millions was probably spent recording it. The main things going for the girls are that they can actually sing live, I’ve witnessed it (on TV of course) and that they look good whilst doing it.

Track List:
1)Pure Shores
2)All Hooked Up
3)Dreams
4)Distance
5)Black Coffee
6)Whoopin Over You
7)I Feel You
8)Surrender
9)Ha Ha
10)Love Is Love
11)Ready, Willing And Able
12)Saints And Sinners
13)I Don’t Wanna Be Alone
14)One More Tequila

Summary: