SAINTS OR SINNERS?
17th October 2000 - nme Online

Heaven Saint?
It seems strange that All Saints first appearance was greeted by mutterings about being a trendy Spice Girls spoiler act (must be something about London Records - they launched East 17 in the face of Take That, and new act Boom! are a streetwise S Club) because, all these years after their debut album, its hard to think of them as a standard pop act at all.

Sometimes the phrase difficult second album doesn’t apply to pop groups as much as to indie stars; with no obstructive songwriting ethic to delay recording, records can be released as soon as they’re recorded, so perhaps the lengthy wait for Saints And Sinners is more evidence in All Saints defence: that theyre more than just a pop group. There’s still that question, though: if this ain’t pop, why are the tunes so good?

‘Pure Shores’
Orbit. Di Caprio. Number One.

‘All Hooked Up’
It’s a song about bottoms! From the opening bars - scratching, a drawling Come awnnn, sounds of shagging sampled and looped in a 2 Live Crew stylee - it’s obvious that rumpo is on the minds of Shaznay and co. Lines about bottoms include: Go girl with your fine ass, I know that you want a piece of my ass/Dont you know that a guy like you wouldnt last, and Why’s this fool all up in my ass, doesn’t he know I want class not trash. It’s a chilled and slinky hint at En Vogue’s ‘Free Your Mind’.

‘Dreams’
Opens with a plucking guitar and warm, duvet-like synth clouds before a rumbling beat pokes its head in heralding a track that could happily have found a home on Madonna’s Music - bits drop out, synthetic guitars appear and disappear, and things that sound like robot kettles begin to boil. ‘Dreams’ has only the merest hint of a chorus, but by the end sounds sublime.

‘Distance’
More acoustic guitars (this time conjuring images of lady Craig David’s) and the repeated mantra ‘Sitting on my own a long way from home its a distance from you and I’m thinkin’ about you too’. More moaning, more sultry chattering in the background, and more members of All Saints sounding like Edith Piaf.

‘Black Coffee’
The new single and, along with ‘Pure Shores’, one of the strongest tracks here… which would explain the fact that it’s a single, one supposes. Further compounding William Orbit’s reputation as a producer as fond of pop blueprints as Pete Waterman or Max Martin, ‘Black Coffee’ squiggles and chugs and shambles along like most Orbit productions except, mercifully, the last Blur album.

‘Whoopin’ Over You’
For a magical moment, ‘Whoopin’ Over You’ sounds like it’s going to burst into the Pearl & Dean cinema ad but then, disappointingly, doesn’t. Instead it leans heavily - really, really quite heavily indeed - on Natalie Cole’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Pink Cadillac’ for its verse melody and - more peculiarly still - Smash Mouth’s ‘Walkin’ On The Sun’ for a chorus. Which obviously sounds like it should be shit but is in fact one of the album’s funkiest moments. Danceable and along the lines of their ‘Lady Marmalade’ cover. There are some nice electro blips at the end, too.

‘I Feel You’
Pop fans of the world control yourselves: this is not the Peter Andre song of the same name. Nor, sadly, is it much better being sparse and uneventful. The appearance of what appears to be a gospel choir halfway through picks things up and slowly the track fills up with warm effects but, crucially, the chorus isn’t up to much.

‘Surrender’
By this point it’s become quite clear that the brief of ‘Saints & Sinners’ involved something along the lines of "Let’s get some proper instruments in this one, eh?", and ‘Surrender’ continues in the acoustic guitar vein. Beginning with a spiralling, swirling effect evocative of The Stranglers’ ‘Golden Brown’ (except this is All Saints so its nothing to do with heroin), it swiftly becomes a beat-y track about surrendering to love, and so on. Nonetheless lines like "Something in the wine that accentuates the mood" and "I feel so sweet as you kiss my feet I spin and fall to you" suggest that the Saints are easily up for a bit of bedroom malarkey after a couple of drinks. Then again, arent we all.

‘Ha Ha’
Listening to this without picturing Nat, Mel, Shaznay and Nic trotting across the stage in a Broadway version of Annie might be tricky; then again the whole song’s a fantastic spin on the old "My music teacher laughed when I said I wanted to be a rockstar" school of popstar cliches and would quite happily fit in with an All Saints’ version of ‘Fame’. Shaznay announces "My life revolved around a long-term lover, music was his name I had no time for any other", parental figures advise her "You can’t sing if you want to make a living", and so on. "Look who’s laughing now" is the final line. Ooh, get them.

‘Love Is Love’
Splendid Eighties-style synth stabs (think of the riff off Salt-N-Pepa’s ‘Push It’) are the centrepiece of this spunky number - strangely located towards the end of the album when the whole thing really should be tailing off by now. More heavy breathing, more muttering, more light and airy harmonies, and a proper corker.

‘Ready, Willing And Able’
Over a repeated chant of "I just can’t get enough", the oddly strangulated vocal delivery continues as we approach the end of the album. Like ‘I Feel You’, ‘Ready, Willing And Able’ is slinky and sultry when it should be jumping up and down on the bed, all the more disappointing when you consider what a waste this is of a brilliant song title.

‘Saints And Sinners’
Prepare to suspend your disbelief - we’ve reached the end of the album and this isn’t a crap ballad but a rather good number in which the Saints decide it’s about time they rocked out. Signs off with a cheery "Fresh for 2000", something which would probably have sounded rather a lot more fresh had it trundled along at the start of the year rather than at a point when it’s getting dark again and everyone’s moaning about the fact that it’s almost Christmas already, and so on.

‘Saints And Sinners’ is released thorugh London Records on October 16, 2000

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