Common Saints - Cinema 3000 (2024) [Hi-Res]

Common Saints’ debut, ‘Cinema 3000’. A record as vast and ambitious as its title might suggest, it takes the hallmarks that have come to define the project - warm, luscious musicality; filmic sensibilities; positivity and a grounded sense of spirituality and hope. It’s an album with a considered point of view, both musically and lyrically; one designed, from opening track ‘Sweet Release’’s ‘70s psych-folk nods and multipart harmonies to closer ‘Sweet Surrender’’s acceptance of the passing of time, to really make you feel.

Recorded over a number of years in his home studio, with Charlie J Perry playing piano, drums, guitar, bass, vocals, dulcimer and percussion (with a little help from Alfie Templeman on drums and guitar for ‘Sweet Surrender’), ‘Cinema 3000’ is audibly the work of someone in love with their craft, creating the music that they want to hear. The loose grooves of ‘C’est La Vie’ act as “a call to yourself to just keep on carrying on”, influenced by nights spent sitting around listening to The Rolling Stones and Creedence Clearwater Revival, while the intoxicating Morcheeba-esque ‘Dream On’ features guest vocals from French singer Taloula ‘Pieces of War’’s raw, rasping vocals, meanwhile, might sound like a wholly different voice but are actually Perry, taking advantage of a bout of “wonderful laryngitis” to record the song in its most pained form.