The Saints: Long March Through The Jazz Age

(Fire Records)

LP/ CD/DL

Released: 28^th November 2025

The final album from The Saints is an anthemic, rousing and wistful farewell from front man Chris Bailey.

The Saints, led by Chris Bailey, swaggered from glory to despair like a drunk finding his way home on Brisbane’s hazy streets. But unlike a boorish drunk the Saints were never anything less than entertaining and intriguing. Their influence on early punk is often overlooked in cursory histories of that time, but their debut album (I’m) Stranded is a classic of the period and the eponymous single (released before New Rose by The Damned) blisters and scorches with as much freshness now as it did then. But Chris Bailey wasn’t a punk. He was a musician with rock n roll in his soul.

Bailey died on April 9, 2022, aged 65 leaving behind a back catalogue of 14 Saints albums and 7 solo albums. Long March Through the Jazz Age is the last recorded work under the Saints moniker. It was recorded at Church Street Studios in Sydney and he was joined by longtime Saints drummer Pete Wilkinson, and guitarist/engineer Sean Carey, who had previously toured and recorded with the band, and Davey Lane (You Am I) on guitar, plus a handpicked ensemble of Sydney’s most exciting young horn, string, and keyboard players.

The album cover shows a figure from behind, and is reminiscent of the classic shot in the movie The Searchers of John Wayne walking away, framed in a doorway. The music itself is elegiac and wistful; a fitting final bow from the Irish/Australian Bailey who inspired many on his journey along the road of rock ‘n’ roll.

Opening with the anthemic Empires (Sometimes We Fall), with its western guitars, and a sense of looking back on success and failures with a shrug of wise shoulders, the tone of the album is set. The feeling of witfulness is apparent on the mournful Vikings, with a spacious production: It’s the end of the world/It’s the end of my world. And Bailey quotes from Brecht to evoke the desire to keep death at bay: Show me the way to the next whisky bar/And lord, don’t ask why/Not tonight.  Resurrection Day is equally as anthemic, even though it sounds almost like a show tune.

The voice has aged well, always larger than life and expressive, it now has a gravitas that only age can bring.

There are great classic rock songs, like Break Away with a razor-sharp rhythm guitar and the lead adding licks and themes as good as anything you will hear, and Gasoline with its Stones inspired riff.  Likewise, Bruises has a very heavy blues riff underpinning it.

There is country pop on Judas and psychedelic undertones on Imaginary Fields Forever. A Vision of Grace conjures up lonely nights with a laid-back vibe as the singer is haunted by the ghosts of his past: The shades have all come down/And no one is around/I feel alone/And then I think of you. There is a noirish sombre mood on Carnivore (Long March Through the Jazz Age), with a trumpet pulling at the emotions in a beautifully restrained and expansive song.

The final song on the final Saints album, Will You Still Be There, has Latin guitars and mariachi horns yet manages to evoke Irish and Australian drinking/farewell ballads. It’s a fitting last farewell from Chris Bailey.

These are twelve songs from beyond the grave that give those with rock n roll in their soul a lifting up, a valediction, a trip to one last whisky bar…

~

You can find The Saints online here, Facebook and Spotify.

All words by Mark Ray. More writing by Mark Ray can be found at his author archive. And he can be found on Instagram.