With the departure of Seattle drummer and cofounder Joshua Tillman, Saxon Shore has become more of a collaborative group than ever. Anchored by guitarist Matt Doty, a fluid roster of contributors helped create the latest EP, Luck Will Not Save Us From a Jackpot of Nothing. The album leans heavily toward synthesizers and programming, yet still retains the dark guitar-driven intensity of previous albums. As before, lyrics are absent and unnecessary to telegraph the band’s themes of hope, beauty and despair. Relying less on traditional verse/chorus/verse patterns and more on warm keyboard sounds, Saxon cofounder Doty devised the basic song structures and melodies at his home in upstate New York. He then sent them to Matt Stone (guitars, synths) in Philadelphia and Oliver Chapoy (guitars, programming, keyboards, and sampling) in Washington, D.C. for collaborative input. Additional tracking and production was done with John Hill in New York City. As a nod to the importance of file-sharing in creating this album, the song titles indicate the dates on which Doty started sessions on his computer. The EP title refers to a nickname the band used for a tour in support of their 2003 full-length, Four Months of Darkness (Burnt Toast Vinyl). On the road for eight continuous weeks in the summer, each night was a crap-shoot as to how many people would come to the shows, Doty says. “It was a ‘jackpot of nothing’ because even if a few people showed up one night, it wasn't guaranteed the next,” he says. Digipak