Savages debut album ‘Silence Yourself‘ was excellent, ‘Adore Life‘ is twice as good. I can see how ‘Silence Yourself‘ was so well received by fans and critics but their follow up is kind of perfect! They’ve replaced the chaos and madness with a more controlled madness, building an album that twists and turns throughout without ever losing quality. It’s still punk rock but they definitely make more use of their lyrics in this second album.
At times with ‘Silence Yourself’ I found it difficult to listen to, feeling that they passed up an opportunity to create a complete song but instead went for noise. The two tracks I loved off the first album were ‘Strife’ and ‘Waiting For A Sign’. On ‘Adore Life‘, I’ve yet to find a song I don’t like! I’m not trying to slate ‘Silence Yourself’, but if you sit down and listen to both albums through you’ll see what I mean. ‘The Answer’ was released as a single and is a solid opener, a little different from their usual stuff. As the album moves on to ‘Evil’ and ‘Sad Person’ you start to hear how they’ve moved on and starting to implement more melodies to their music. The songs lead you along and keep your attention, with some seriously quality drums too.
The stand out track and one of 2016’s best is ‘Adore’. It’s just unbelievable and it’s songs like these that make me appreciate proper artists more. There’s no bullshit with it, she doesn’t fake the emotion and there’s not a second of the song where your focus drops. Her lyrics talk about adoring life while you live it, guilt and also taking a little too much,. The well structured songs continue with ‘Slowing Down The World’ and its edgy guitar, taking us in slow before ripping out again. We see Jehnny Beth at her most angry with ‘I Need Something New’, but its also very catchy. It builds and builds and gets louder and louder as she describes what I feel is her desire to see change and not become stagnant, as iF things were slowing down and she’s acting upon it. Two more excellent tracks follow in ‘When In Love’ and ‘Surrender’ which keep the back end of the album alive and well. It was at this point of the debut album that my attention started to slip, but thankfully they’ve come along this time with much more to offer. The changing drums and gritty guitar light up both these tracks and it becomes even more difficult to pick your favourite track from the album,but who am I kidding its ‘Adore’.
The two closing tracks are also very good and ‘Mechanics’ serves as an excellent finisher, nothing too wild, a strong focus on the lyrics and also minimal use of multiple instruments so you really understand the meaning, how she describes sex and how she wants to be in control of whoever she ‘takes’. Excellent track.
I’d have to put this one up there with my top albums of 2016, its complete, better than the debut, loud and gritty, and very well put together. Get some of their stuff, they’re Savage.
G.M
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