On paper, SAULT is a band I should love. They tick many of the genre and influence boxes that are more or less central to my everyday listening choices and they’re clearly exceptional musicians.

So I downloaded the 5 free SAULT albums. Because of course I did.

But I have never quite gelled with them, and these new releases cement that mismatch. They’re fine, but not interesting.

Their prolific output is not, in any way, miraculous – and far from being a “democratisation of music” as some breathless bloggers and tweeters have exclaimed, their download release is, if anything, entirely retrograde – and in many ways unhelpful.

Here’s why.

SAULT is a jam band. A very good jam band, but a jam band nonetheless. Their songs are explorations rather than finished works. They improvise around a structure, working riffs and grooves over with minor variations. Most of their (non-classical) tracks sound like the second or third time the song has ever been played. This is not meant as a criticism (other than the extent to which I find much of it fairly dull), but an observation and an explanation of elements of their aesthetic as well as of the volume of their output.

Nothing they do (outside of the classical realm) sounds particularly crafted. They sound like what they are – exceptional musicians with some good ideas and a bit of studio time in which to play with those ideas. It’s fine, if somewhat repetitive. There are better examples of all of the different types of music that SAULT make. If anything, the sheer diversity rather than the quality of their output is the most interesting part.

But tossing out 5 albums in mp3 format for free – rather than creating a celebratory event about the democratisation of art, seems an attempt to underline the disposable nature of recorded music in the digital age. Don’t like these punky jams? Here have this choral music. No? What about this psychedelic neo-soul?

The anonymity thing adds mystery, of course, but it plays into the old industry thing of aloof mystique being central to stardom. It is the opposite, rather than the culmination of the internet’s effect on the business of music. If they filmed and live-streamed their studio sessions, spoke openly with audiences and press, and put their names to the music they made, that would be different. Not better, necessarily and I can see the appeal – but let’s not confuse this with anything emancipatory or disruptive.

I mean, clearly there are a LOT of different people involved, and SAULT could be a rotating cast of a hundred musicians for all I know, so it might just be a logistical thing. Honestly, it would not surprise me to learn that Damon Albarn is in some way involved behind the (lack of) scenes. I’m waiting for the Wizard of Oz reveal. But let’s face it, correctly crediting and attributing the contributions of session players and seasoned professionals all collaborating on their fun side project is simply administratively cumbersome.

So let’s be clear about a few things with respect to the SAULT drop:

1. The albums will not only be available for 5 days. This set will be available basically everywhere on the internet for anyone who looks for it from this moment forward. There is no scarcity. This is a zip file of mp3s plus a social media campaign with a puzzle gimmick.

2. It’s mp3s in a zip file, downloadable from a server. Technologically we are in the 90s. Once it stops being available from that server it will no doubt spend the rest of its days as a readily accessible torrent, which brings us up to 2001.

3. It’s mp3s. Yes, most people with an internet connection can download and listen to mp3s. In that respect, there is something waving vaguely in the direction of democratisation, but not providing lossless files appears to underline the perceived disposability of this music. Are we not supposed to listen seriously on as good equipment as we can afford, or is this background noise for the bus journey?

4. The fact that it’s free is not an innovation and nor is it especially political. It’s marketing. It’s more canny than the U2 on everyone’s iPhone thing of course, because it’s resulted in overwhelmingly positive word of mouth rather than overwhelmingly negative word of mouth – but it’s cut from the same cloth. It’s Massive Attack releasing a spray can claiming that their album is encoded in DNA within the black paint.

5. The fact that this is 5 albums all at once is not astonishing. I know artists who could record 5 perfectly respectable albums over the course of a weekend. That is the nature of improvisation. It’s a bonus for people who like SAULT (and there are a lot of them) but it’s not miraculous. Of course AIIR would take a lot of writing, orchestration and conducting – but this only supports the conclusion that SAULT is a cooperative of dozens, if not hundreds of artists donating a bit of spare stuff while all working professionally on other things.

6. Making everything free might help audiences at a time of fiscal crisis, but it does absolutely nothing for the cause of independent musicians desperately trying to assert the economic value of their work.

7. Not to be pedantic, but you can’t give names to untitled albums. All of the ‘untitled’ albums have subtitles. In truth, the three ‘untitled’ albums are called ‘Black Is’, ‘Rise’ and ‘God’.

8. Get off my lawn.