In 2013, Savages released the excellent album Silence Yourself, one of the best debut albums ever produced. Following a near 3-year absence from recording (bar a bizarre collaborative 37 minute poem/single with Japanese rockers Bo Ningen) Savages have been in a flurry of activity. Singer Jehnny Beth collaborated with Julian Casablancas, bassist Ayse Hassan unveiled a new band named Kite Dreams, the band covered Eagles of Death Metal in tribute to those killed in the Paris attacks, and new album Adore Life was released.
The album starts off in a flurry of guitars with the first single to be unveiled from the album, ‘The Answer’. The guitars and drums clatter and hurtle along at an unstable pace, with Beth’s singing sounding far more refined than we heard in Silence Yourself. The song sounds like the Sex Pistols with a female singer and distortion pedals. The lyrics are focused on the demands of a person for the love of another, but in an extremely sinister way. It’s desperate – “what’s the point / to cry about life / to cry about love / to wait for her / to wait for dying” – questioning – “Ain’t you glad it’s you?” but also threatening and angry – “Sleep with me / And we’ll still be friends / Or I know / I’ll go insane”. It’s like nothing we’ve heard from Savages before, and drags us into this album with a jolt.
The next track is ‘Evil’, and sounds more like the Banshees-esque Savages we heard in 2013, with the muddy bass and slicing guitar. The lyrics are almost a warning, “Don’t try to change / don’t try to change”, but also a commitment: “Evil’s on the other side / I will never let you down”. It’s an ok track, but isn’t really great, and sadly this sets the tone for the album
After bass-led kicker ‘Sad Person’ comes the third single, the extremely heavy ‘Adore’. The plodding bass and drums go at a death-march tempo, with the guitar grinding and cutting. The lyrics are grim and regretful, with the repeated lyric of ‘I adore life’ almost seeming like wry humour. Then the music suddenly soars for a few seconds, like an eagle rising over a cliff, then comes back down to the grinding plod. It’s an absolutely fantastic song, the best song Savages have ever released
Sadly, the problem with this album is the same problem with The Clash’s Combat Rock and Manic Street Preachers Gold Against the Soul. The first side is so good that side 2 lets the album down somewhat. The 5 tracks on side 2, ‘I Need Something New’, ‘When in Love’, ‘Surrender’ ‘T.I.W.Y.G’ , and ‘Mechanics’ are pretty forgettable and don’t really have the killer hook that the earlier songs have. It’s a shame as the first side is so amazing it deserves a really awesome, killer second side that seals the album’s status as a classic, but it doesn’t have that. The songs aren’t bad, they’re just rather forgettable and throwaway songs, like an episode of Dr Who in Peter Capaldi’s first series.
Overall, Adore Life is a good album that fails to be great despite its undeniable promise. Give it a listen if you like punk or other harder forms of rock, but if you’re new to the band, I recommend you listen to the debut first.
Rating: 7/10
Words by Gabriel Rutherford