Four albums into their chamber folk career, and The Saxophones have just about nailed what the genre can do. It’s the drifting sensibilities that strike through best of all on No Time for Poetry, an album reflecting on modern times as every singer should, or at least presumably wishes they could. Few will mark up a strong read on the world, which isn’t either blisteringly obvious or strangely ignorant too the troubling times of modern life, but The Saxophones nail this balance. It proves crucial for No Time for Poetry, an album where even the title warns there are more pressing matters at hand than flowery lyrical choices or impressive instrumental flourishes. What matters now is the message, be it one of anxiety or keeping faith, is brought through with clarity. The Saxophones, by that metric, has a real success on their hands. They have the flourish of their influences on their side but, crucially, a new voice bringing truth to power. It’s a common fixture of modern music, but few are doing it well.
Crucial to this is the atmosphere No Time for Poetry creates. Meditative, threatening to explode into some defiant statement but persevering and keeping its cool the whole way through. It has the suaveness and sexiness of Leonard Cohen at his very best, the contemplative instrumentals flourishing as Alexi Erenkov adds some intimate lyrical observations. The Saxophones rarely let up here but they do, crucially, give their message a chance to breathe. Whether it’s in the foot-tapping, delightful sway created on Mind Wanderer or the darker flourish of the preceding song Winter Moon, there is a tone for just about everyone to be found here. What we want and what we desire are separate, or at least that is the argument The Saxophones make on Mind Wanderer. It’s a real high for the album, a lyrical powerhouse and instrumental treat which has that darker tone blurred so effectively with the natural lightness which comes from the slightly spaced-out feeling.
Just when it starts to pull on the Cohen tone a little too hard, The Saxophones right their course and come through with a superb track like Burning with Desire. What do we do when that burning candle, that passion, is extinguished? No idea, but at least No Time for Poetry asks us to fuel the flame once more, no matter what it takes, with their classy chamber pop sound. Just when No Time for Poetry sounds as though it is getting comfortable, it throws in a new element to make its sound sinister, striking, and altogether surprising. Cypress Hill into I Fought the War is a fantastic example of this, a mood-setting double bill where the opposites of each tone attract, carving out a meaning which props No Time for Poetry up as one of the best albums of the year.
The onus of change is on the shoulders of a listener who hears the call to arms, the self-love, throughout No Time for Poetry. An exciting and consistent piece of chamber pop work, a continually charming album, even with its worries for the world around us. Pair that wider acceptance of things going awry with a contentedness we are all guilty of, and you have an album which challenges not the comfort of your own life, but the inactivity of making it, and the world around you, better. A strong message like that is dependent on the last two tracks, Wayward Men and No Time for Poetry, two staggering moments from The Saxophones, which get to the very heart of what purpose we must serve the modern world.
