Saint Saviour – ‘Sunseeker’ album review: a stunning serving of quirky folk comfort
THE SKINNY: There are various ways to seek the sun in your life. Moving to Perth, Australia – the Earth’s sunniest city – or chancing your hand at a winter break in Tenerife spring to mind on this bleak March day. With either of those, you’re still placing your fate in on the capricious lap of the weather gods. A far less drastic but more reliable dose of daylight can be found by simply giving Saint Saviour’s new album, Sunseeker, a spin.
The record sees Stockton-born songwriter Becky Jones look for lightness in life. In actuality, a hopeful ray of this was shone upon the despair of losing her mother and grandmother in quick succession through the birth of her child. Sunseeker channels her bid to focus on the light rather than the darkness in every which way. While her thoughts might be fraught and the brooding undercurrent of her typical experimentation remains, the main focus is always the twinkling of softly plucked strings playing out shimmering melodies.
In this regard, the record feels like a wander through nature with a headful of thoughts—the beauty of the world around you steadily chipping away at them and pulling you towards oneness rather than distraction. Musically, this is achieved by core linear rhythms that give the songs a sense of wandering forward movement, with Jones’ voice one of the main melodic instruments throughout, while frequently varied flourishes flutter in and out of the musicology, whereby a sudden mandarin mimics fleeting birdsong. Lyrically, this method is also bolstered by verbose verses full of thought, never being too far away from a catchy chorus.
This makes for an album that is light and leaden, like a kite on the beach tied to a rusted anchor. A breezy disposition and experimental soundscape weave around in the air magically, dazzling the listener. Still, the roots of tried and tested pop structures ensure that Sunseekers never blow away, and there is scope for the depth that Jones conveys.
All in all, it is a thing of beauty. It is otherworldly and yet very familiar. It is about human experience not precluding the search for sunnier ideals—and, triumphantly, that is exactly how it sounds: a record that effortlessly recognises the role of winter in the line, “Here comes the sun doo-doo-doo-doo”.
For fans of: Ending a jog with a pint in a beer garden.
A concluding comment from BA’s marketing department: “Sunseekers? I’ve heard sunnier albums. Put it this way: it won’t be the soundtrack to landing in Xanthi any time soon. This is cloudier than Torquay.”
Sunseeker track-by-track:
Release Date: March 22nd | Producer: Bill Ryder-Jones | Label: VLF
‘Better Than’: It begins with a track that feels wholly complete and considered. There is a casual aura of perfection about ‘Better’ and its seamless composition. Subsumed in thought, the catchy melody comes out as a sigh, almost masking its pop mastery. [4.5/5]
‘A Picture Is All I Have’: Jones welcomes Orlando Weeks to the record for a stirring reflection on memory, loss and impermanence. It serenely gathers towards a hushed declaration that this day is as real as any. [4.5/5]
‘Be Gentle’: Jones taps into her more avant-garde side that flourished on previous albums. There is a charming 1960s feel to proceedings that really establishes the record’s desire to be sunny and breezy. [4/5]
‘I Just Can’t Take the Risk’: This time, Jadu Heart offers up some guest vocals in another track that showcases how Jones is capable of writing the strangest seamlessly singalong choruses on record. Such fraught thinking has rarely been so catchy. [4/5]
‘Poetry’: A beautiful key change at the midpoint highlights how brilliant Jones and Ryder-Jones are at building compositions together. After being delicately coaxed by a quietly profound introduction, a sudden upswell of beauty is unleashed as though you’ve wandered into the woods and had spring burst into bloom just like a party popper. [5/5]
‘Let’s Go Outside’: Listening to this while chained to a keyboard really brings out its strength because I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make you want to go outside. So, it delivers on its promise and even offers a luscious few bars of gentle guitar soloing for a moment of understated beauty. [4/5]
‘Gold in the Water’: Any fears that the folky guitar-led tracks were becoming samey are quickly kicked into touch as strings add a waltzing feel and sense of departure. The composition then wavers and pauses, creating one of the more unusually shaped songs on the record. [4/5]
‘Cellophane’: An oscillating synth sound the likes of which I’ve never heard before underscores plucked strings and welcomes you into the album’s avant-pop oddity. It’s strangely reminiscent of Billy Connolly’s menagerie on Lemony Snicket, if that’s not too much of an outrageously obscure reference to casually deploy. [4/5]
‘Morning Bird’: A lullaby sound taps into the album’s theme of Jones finding sunshine through her child. Resplendent with gorgeous lyrics like, “Looks like God’s got wandering roots beneath my house”, the track is like a proverbial tonne of feathers—it could float towards a window as a wisp and smash it on impact, like The Little Prince. [4.5/5]
‘Not Nothing’: After muttering away for most of the record, Ryder-Jones finally gets a featuring credit. There’s a more serious and solemn uptake in the music as though Hans Zimmer is scoring the mellowest Christopher Nolan feature to date. Jones earnestly pleads with someone who has lost their way in a sweetly sincere manner. [4/5]
‘Little Bee’: A whistling coda. Humble, hushed and personal, Jones is reflective in this summer garden farewell. There is nothing worse than when a story doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do—this record achieves everything it promises rather perfectly. [3.5/5]
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