Album Review: The Saints - King Of The Sun

While the The Saints brandname always has the respect of history for its world-altering first incarnation, Chris Bailey's continued use of it can still upset many of the purists. For while responsible for at least one genuine classic in Ghost Ships – handily included here on a bonus disc of highlights from Bailey's ongoing vision of the band – some lineups and records really didn't honour the title.

So, as a long-termer, you sometimes warily approach a new Saints album. And happily, as here, sometimes you can walk away conditionally pleased with what's been offered. From the opening cascade of piano, and the brass and string lines which entwine through many of the songs, there's a feeling some care and time has been taken with the process of this. It's mostly the slightly Celtic, r'n'b flavoured balladry Bailey has always done well, rather than the throwaway garage rock to which he occasionally defaults.

And he's very obviously at its centre. The lyrics are often typically wearied and cynical, general descents into madness and despair still present. But the cornered man is still wisecracking, even as the world lines up against him. Sometimes “I can't even find the rhyme” he laments in Craters On The Moon, but somehow he always manages to. He is older, that identifiable voice sometimes sounding sand-blasted and straining. On the title track it strikes as a bit sad, if you can imagine it with the curled-lip sneer of Christopher's youth raging against the dying of the light. But when he becomes quieter and more reflective, as in Duty or the (not-so-) Sweet Chariot, it's the rasp of a man who has lived it.