Santino Le Saint's “No More Icons” is a haunting symbol that allows for the existence of both self-loathing and radical self love
Image Credit: Santino Le Saint via his Instagram account
U.K. based musical artist and guitarist Santino Le Saint dropped his new album No More Icons on November 11, 2022. The 24 year old singer, rapper, and guitarist from Brixton dropped its first single, Goodbye Paris on September 21 to promote his album, followed by Damaged Goods on October 20. With 7 tracks, this album will take under half an hour to listen to – becoming the next perfect thing to mull over during your next quick commute.
The aesthetic vibe of the album (we’re a marketing company specialising in branding and we just have to speak on this after all) is starkly different from the highly contrasted bright colours and dark tones that can be seen throughout his previous work. This album’s aesthetics focus on black and white photography that reminds us of Jimi Hendrix and many rock and roll Gods in the same right – high exposure plays with shadows and intelligently matches the lyrics, tone, and overall feel of the album – vulnerability and exploring our own shadows are crucial narratives that take centre stage on the album cover alongside throughout each musical piece.
Read on to learn more about the album and catch our reviews and thoughts about the entire album and its tracks.
Image Credit: Santino Le Saint via santinolesaint.com
No More Icons is an auditory story that narrates the experience of given wisdom and often, dark night of the soul experience that is required to attain true enlightenment and understanding of harsh truths about life. Le Saint artfully narrates common interrelational and romantic situations that are often riddled with heartache and judgement; whether this includes judgement of ourselves, or how others perceive us, it is a symbol that allows for the existence of both self-loathing and radical self love. Pain can truly be dripping with sweetness – like a haunting lullaby, or, as Santino Le Saint coos in Burning, “like rain hitting an open fire.”
There is a heavy lightness that comes with the truths Le Saint sings about – the permanence of life is nonexistent, and the full range of human emotion is integral to our experience in this lifetime, in this realm.
We're living on borrowed timeSo come get yoursBaby it's all borrowed timeSo when it rains it poursOh borrowed timeI adore youIt's all borrowed timeWho needs more– Borrowed Time [hook], No More Icons
Video: Borrowed Time by Santino Le Saint via YouTube
The entire album is unapologetic and raw, yet each track is masterfully crafted to almost sound the complete opposite at first listen – each song has a powerful, yet minimised feel, and Le Saint makes sure to capture each emotion he feels to the maximum artfully through his poetics. The lyrics have a transfixing, haunting quality to them, as does Santino Le Saint’s voice. You can hear, feel and identify so many different, often opposing emotions in his melodic coos between each song. This can especially be heard in the song Say What You’re Gonna Say. Santino centres the song around the concept of “nothing [being[ left to hide”; it is truly as if he’s giving his listeners reassurance through his own pain – it is completely okay to be in a state of being fragmented and dejected. There’s beauty and romance in this, too.
Throughout Santino Le Saint’s lyrics, self-sabotage is also curiously juxtaposed with self-actualisation (figuratively, but also, quite literally in the song Somewhere Between Heaven & Hell) Both are essential to continue transforming and evolving in this life. The liminal space between seems to be just as much of a sweet experience as it afflicts pain.
Image Credit: Tidal
In terms of the genre of this album, Le Saint successfully continues to evolve on his own unique sound. It’s hard to truly determine what exactly that is as he creatively blends multiple genres of music together to produce this album. You will frequently hear grunge combined with dark R&B, and there is a heavy prominence of rockstar level guitar riffs with smooth, sultry vocals and strong percussion – it’s not rock, it’s not R&B. Just like this album’s lyrics and overall feel, the music creates harmony between contentment and escapism.
This is similar to the feel of his previous albums, where he often intermixed escapism through drugs and alcohol with complete and utter vulnerability and often, spirituality. Yet, here, Le Saint does it in a way that goes beyond all worldly concepts – there is truly something significant underlying the music and lyrics, a raw earnestness that hasn’t been explored by Le Saint in this manner before.
Video: Burning by Santino Le Saint via YouTube
Then we get to the track Wings off a Dove, which sounds slower, more sultry and has an immensely sexy beat, but is just as intense as the rest of the album. With no bars held back, in this track, Le Saint creates inroads between feeling guilty and accepting things for what they are, including our own mistakes. Here, Le Saint allows us to be free to make our choices, but also allows the people around us to feel free with theirs without letting our perceptions of ourselves and reputations get in the way. Through his eyes, we are able to see beyond imperfections and flaws – to see a person for who they truly are.
No More Icons is a series of melancholic ruminations that investigate, inquire and analyse the honest truth of every kind of emotion without judging them – it is matter of fact. As we experience the album in full with you, we would like to ask you, the listener, the following questions inspired by the album to ruminate upon with us: how much smoother would our experiences in life be if we let ourselves feel our emotions without judging them? Wouldn’t we be more truthful with ourselves and the people around us?
Image Credit: Equate Magazine
Our rating of the album:
4.5/5
Our favourite songs:
Damaged Goods
Borrowed Time
Burning
Plunge In and Explore Deeper – Video: Kill My High (Freestyle) by Santino Le Saint via YouTube
