We have a lot of love for Savages. As forerunners in the recent renaissance in alternative music, they put themselves out on a limb while others lacked the courage to risk the fall. Their amazing live outings were mirrored by an inventiveness in their sound that lifted them head and shoulders above their contemporaries. Before they had recorded their first album, we had marked them as the best show in town and the release of the excellent Silence Yourself in 2013 only served to confirm this.
Thankfully, their pioneering approach became infectious and over the past few years a large number of fine new bands have emerged, leaving their erstwhile mentors in the strange position for young musicians of being veterans in a rapidly expanding field.
It has taken Savages a fair while to follow up on their debut; long gone are the days when artists would release a quality album every year and the four-piece appear not to have had much downtime in a hectic schedule. Perhaps this left them playing catch-up, for Adore Life bears the hallmark of a group keen to get new recordings out without perhaps taking the time to thoroughly explore the distant boundaries of the realm of possibility. The ten-track, thirty-nine minute collection is a punchy one, more capturing the live essence of Savages than embracing the spirit of exploration that helped infuse Silence Yourself with such delightful subtleties and daring. It’s almost brutal in its attack and, despite dropping in a couple of slower moments, the pressure is unlifting. Soundwise, there is no escaping the fact that Jehnny Beth sounds like Siouxsie Sioux and much of Adore Life could have come from mid-period Banshees, though Savages always wear fewer disguises and perhaps lack some guile. Gemma Thompson’s guitars crash and occasionally wail, but never take charge, leaving the voice dominant, and drummer Fay Milton probably added a few muscles in the record’s making but she is immersed in the assault rather than revelling in the opportunity to dance around it. On the other hand, bassist Ayse Hassan thrives in the record’s rumbustiousness and lays down some marvellous patterns that only underline her position as one of the great bassists of the modern era.
By no stretch of the imagination is this a bad record, but there is no escaping the faint feeling of disappointment that Savages haven’t taken things further; they haven’t pushed enough and always want to punch instead of cajole and allure. When they hit the spot on the shining ‘Slowing Down The World’, they sound untouchable and there are highlights throughout, but there is a little too much journeying going on without enough effort to take in the views.
The Fat Angel Sings 