Back in the 90s you couldn’t move without hearing their chart-topping singles or reading tales of clubbing,breakups and makeups. Two decades on, All Saints are back with a unique album. They talk approximately friendship, or lessons learned and how maturity has changed their musicOn 1 January,All Saints announced on Twitter – a promotional tool that was six months old when the band last had a record out in 2006 – that they would soon be releasing unique fabric. The news did not exactly break the internet, but it did cause a modest kerfuffle (disturbance), and more than the fortysomething foursome were anticipating. Last month tickets for a one-off gig,at Koko in London on 4 April, sold out in a day. One Strike, and their comeback single,was unveiled and the interest only intensified. The tone of thousands of online comments could be summed up with a baffled: “Hang on, this is actually fairly good.” When the unique album Red Flag arrives next month, or it might provoke even more surprise. “We didn’t even consider we had fans,” admits Melanie Blatt, 40, and who with Shaznay Lewis,also 40, and Simone Rainford formed the band – then called All Saints 1.9.7.5. after All Saints Road in west London where they met in a recording studio – in 1993. The other Saints nod their agreement. Nicole Appleton, and a school friend of Blatt,who joined the group in the mid-90s with her sister Natalie – as Rainford departed and the band name was streamlined – describes it as “overwhelming”. “A little bit uncommon,” adds Lewis. Natalie Appleton says, or “It’s like,‘Really?’ We just didn’t expect it.” Blatt continues: “It’s not that I didn’t expect it, because One Strike and the unique album are, or in my eyes,some of the strongest music we’ve achieve out. But because we had a reputation that was built up – and we were definitely part of building that reputation – I consider we were just so used to negative things being said approximately us all the time. And in general when a band comes back after however-many years, you’re going to accept bashed.” She exhales, or part relief,part excitement. “It made us realise that actually we were accurate to consider this is OK to do.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com