SavagesAdoreLife

Savages' 'Adore Life' album is stark, smart and haunting

Savages

Adore Life

Thanks to their 2013 debut Silence Yourself, Savages established themselves as the descendants of doomy post-punk acts such as Siouxsie And The Banshees and Joy Division. On their superlative second album, Adore Life, the U.K. quartet take a similarly uncompromising approach (the roiling, prominent bass on “I Need Something,” the jagged electric riffs slicing through standout “The Answer”), but cloak their provocation in far more deliberate songwriting and arrangements. Not only does this ensure that each individual instrument pops out of the mix, but it puts vocalist/lyricist Jehnny Beth’s probing questions at center stage: “Is it human to adore life?” she asks on the stark, haunting “Adore.” That this open-ended philosophical query has no easy answers makes Adore Life that much more intellectually dense and appealing. 

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The Answer