Sade enters their fourth decade of existence with a sixth studio album. And what an entrance! The group's distinct sound, precisely constructed to perforate the artifice of performance and directly convey the wages of the heart, seems to have an unusual resistance to mortality, existing beyond popular music trends; it is as if Sade have stepped outside of the aging process. Their sound is singular, their familiar style so strong that almost any one track feels as if it could have been recorded during any period of the group's history, a meaningful timelessness that allows minor renovations to feel like revelations.
"Soldier of Love" is based entirely around a single staggering groove, a wounded stride anchored simply by a regular kick drum and delayed snare. Around this motif, and its unrelenting-yet-damaged steps, a song is gradually carved: a sensuous sculpture that refuses to congeal, an effect not unlike making out an uncertain shape by touch in total darkness. The crackling moments of sudden intensity that beset our travelers-- snapping martial snares, handclaps, guitars grinding in dirt one moment, quivering synthesizers the next, hints of flamenco guitar, sudden guitar distortion, a trumpet's clarion cutting above it all-- tease risk, sexuality, and relief from the groove's uncompromising continuity. Each sound disappears a moment later, a sensation or mirage, an elusive hint at the visage of an uncertain future. Of course, at its center is Sade Adu's incomparable voice, which sounds as passionately poised as it did on 1984's Diamond Life. And it is through her vocals that "Soldier of Love" becomes a long, treacherous caravan journey struck by sudden flashes of purpose-- skirmishes with the enemy, waiting "for love to come, turn it all around."
