(Epic/Sony)

British lounge-soul pioneers return after a ten-year hiatus

It’s pretty easy to underestimate Sade’s music. Ever since the British four-piece débuted in 1984, they have been written off as insubstantial, modish: the kind of music that cashed-up investment bankers would listen to on their then brand-new CD players. Then there’s the issue of the persona of Sade Adu: always as cool and mysterious as the Smooth Operator she famously sang about, who looks like she hasn’t aged a day since the first press photos were taken. You might be tempted, therefore, to write off Soldier Of Love, the group’s first album since 2000’s Lovers Rock, as insubstantial chill-out guff. That would be a mistake. For although the outer surface is deceptively cool and anodyne, after a few listens the album opens up to reveal a world of emotions hidden behind Adu’s anhedonic façade: a combination of tenderness and jealousy in Babyfather, an ode to Adu’s daughter’s father and his love for her (one presumes things between Adu and this man have soured in the interim). The title track might be better rendered ‘Veteran Of Love,’ as it deals with the damage wrought by love and those who survive it. Behind these deeply ambiguous tracks, Sade retain their signature sound – I can think of few groups whose début was so fully-formed, and who have not needed to mess with a near-perfect formula in the intervening years. Since Sade so rarely enter the studio together, Soldier Of Love is a rare thing indeed, and one to be treasured.

****½

CHAD PARKHILL

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