Perhaps mindful of the fact that music can often get lost or neglected because of image, Irish duo Saso have always retained an air of mystery to their work. Despite releasing a well-received debut in 2001, followed by an equally lauded 2004 follow-up, writer Jim Lawler and producer Ben Rawlins have rarely played live, or interacted with the media.
On their third album, The Middle Ages, they’ve once again created an atmospheric soundscape open to comparisons with Sigur Ros and Radiohead. Like the Oxford five-piece’s OK Computer, The Middle Ages is as unnerving and dark as it is beautiful. Its title is perhaps the first indicator of what lies ahead. Taken by this writer as a reference to the Pope’s Children generation, it feeds off the same urban tension and paranoia which laced Yorke and Co’s masterpiece. On ‘Shrinkwrap’ Lawler sings of “holding-on”, that “the walls just caved in” and asks “How do I switch off?”, whilst later celebrating the dream-like images of cities levelled and “buildings falling” on ‘Waking Life’.
Throughout the duo mine the strain, stress and dislocation of life in modern Ireland to create 11 tracks which distil such feelings through the sounds of ferocious guitar stabs (‘Chasing Monsters’), dark under-flowing basslines (‘Red Scare’), schizophrenic chatter (‘We’re Sorry’) and atmospheric meltdowns (‘Blood Is Thin’). It makes for an engaging and complex work constantly captivating and intriguing, and a must for fans of the aforementioned works of Sigur Ros and Oxford’s finest.