Earth by Sault

Earth landed on November 1, 2022, one of five albums Sault dumped on the world in a single day, free, behind a password-locked download that stayed open for just five days. The British collective framed the whole haul as an offering to God, and four of the five, Earth among them, reached streaming services on November 12. It's the group's eighth studio album.

Producer Inflo, who steers the mostly anonymous project alongside singer Cleo Sol, keeps it rooted in funk, but the grooves here stretch outward: The Daily Telegraph heard soul riding on African drum patterns, and the record tends to circle and deepen rather than sprint for a chorus. "Stronger" is the track that found its way onto a countdown. Most critics took the five releases as one enormous gesture, and The Observer handed the batch five stars, hearing generosity rather than excess.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.