London post-punk "revival" (so quoted because they sound and feel more like an original 80s UK post-punk group than the 2000s revivalist groups in the vein of Franz Ferdinand and the like) Savages have returned with a new album, Adore Life. The album follows on the heels of their very successful debut album, 2013's Silence Yourself.
Savages have released their second album, Adore Life
Silence Yourself carried a very traditional post-punk sound and aesthetic, drawing heavy influence from groups like Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division. While a strong album, it was a bit light in the experimental nature that surrounded the original 80s post-punk genre. Adore Life brings that experimental nature to the forefront, resulting in a dynamic album that effortlessly navigates faster, traditional post-punk tunes through slower, ballad-like numbers, all without losing the listener or leading to the often ill-fated "never-ending-album-will-someone-please-turn-it-off" syndrome that over-experimentation can cause.
Adore Life opens with "The Answer," a distortion-laden song revolving around love and adoration. The song presents a larger focus with a driving bass line supplied by Ayse Hassan and a guitar solo from Gemma Thompson. The frantic guitar throughout the song strongly parallels singer Jehnny Beth's vocals with lines like "I'll go insane / Please stand up / What is the point?" which detail some of the struggle in determining how someone feels about you.
"Evil" starts off with an interplay between Hassan and Thompson that sounds vaguely similar to Killing Joke's "New Cold War" from Pylon (2015), though minus the heavy distortion industrial-leaning sound. Fay Milton on drums rounds out this number, providing a solid background with minor layers of detail that enriches the song further.
What makes Savages, in my opinion, more like the original post-punk bands and less like the modern "revival" post-punk bands is how many of the songs are highly bass-driven. "Evil" is just one example with "Sad Person" being another. Bands like Bauhaus and Joy Division are largely loved on a music level due to this somewhat unique quality, where the bass and drums provide much of the meat and drive of a song with guitar adding little flourishes here and there.
The album's title track opts for a slower, more reflective tone, led largely by Hassan on bass. Beth's lyrics center around a question of humanity and whether the idea of adoring/valuing life is unique to people and contemplates on past actions and whether it was best to do those, even if they led to negative endings, resolving that even if you have regrets, you lived life, you adore life because you continue on.
Adore Life continues in much the same manner as the early songs, offering driving music matched to Beth's Siouxsie Sioux-esque vocals. Songs like "When In Love" and "Surrender" deserve additional praise, the first for one of Thompson's opportunities to shine on guitar, and the latter for a very synth-layered bass backing from Hassan that nods back to 80s new wave meets darkwave sentiments.
Savages are set to tour this spring in support of the new album, reaching Dallas on April 11, playing at Trees. With two strong albums under their belt, and perhaps the only band to play an amazing show at 8am on a Tuesday morning, this is not a show to miss. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased here.
As an insider looking out, it's hard for me to comprehend anyone asking "Who was David Bowie?" Then again, I come from an age of younger music consumers who, following the Kanye West/Paul McCartney collaboration had the gall to say things like "We don't know who you are old man, but Kanye has just made your career!" not realizing that McCartney was one fourth of the legendary Beatles, who arguably began the first major shift in what the music world is today.
For the alternative crowd (encompassing every form of societal misfit, from art students to goths to punks to the freedom fighters without label), David Bowie was everything. It may feel a little facetious for a 26 year old to claim Bowie was everything. His touring days ended before I had really traversed high school, and certainly a little before I had first discovered his music. But, at the root of it all, David Bowie came to be everything I believed in, in some sense of the term.
A friend wrote on Facebook about Bowie saying that yes, David Jones, the man, the singer, he has died. But, David Bowie? Bowie is an idea, a way of contemplating life. Bowie will never die. I greatly enjoy this idea. It feels weird to write about Bowie in the past tense. Though Ziggy Stardust "died" in the early 70s, we still refer back to that persona and still often identify with it - this alien being brought to earth for some mission that we as human can't quite fully understand, but we'll help him as best we can.
I first heard the name David Bowie somewhere around the age of 16. It seems that if you're going to discover Bowie, you do it around the age of 14 to about 18. If you didn't find him then, you may never find him. You listen to his songs, and even the ones he did back in the 60s somehow sound fresh and like they were made for you and you alone. My first song, "The Man Who Sold the World," has remained with me ever since, solidly my favorite from him even if it's now about 46 years old. This song is almost twice as old as I am, yet somehow it remains timeless.
Outside the music, there was always something mythical about Bowie. Was he even real or did we all collectively make him up? Bowie was a star in every sense of the word, yet as time wore on, so much of the drama associated with that sort of status was missing. And only Bowie could turn his own death into a work of art. I hadn't watched the "Lazarus" video before he died, but felt the song was some sort of throwback to a period of jazz bandstand in the New York way back. Now, it's seen as a song for us to contemplate over - "Look up here, I'm in heaven / I've got scars that can't be seen." Maybe we're reading too heavily into it, but it feels like Bowie's way of saying "Hey, my suffering is over and now I'm in heaven, flying like the blue bird, free."
I remember being in an online forum where some people were talking about Bowie's death. Some, myself included, reported that we had been crying for hours, with more hours of distraught tears to come. Others said that we were going overboard, excessive in our grief. Why are you so upset over some musician dying? Who cares?
I think back to being younger and seeing the news still report on the anniversaries of the deaths of Elvis and John Lennon. They would always show people grieving, crying, shattered, broken. Having not been alive for either of those events, I wondered how and even why they felt as they did. And after submerging myself in Bowie's expansive catalog ten years ago, I knew I would have a hard time saying goodbye when the day did come. Now that that day has arrived, I know exactly what those faithful fans of Elvis and Lennon felt.
You see, for the alternative crowd, Bowie is our Elvis, our Lennon. He was never afraid to call things as he saw them, having early on called out MTV for not showcasing talent from non-white artists, among other things. Bowie was unapologetically unique. We talk often about bands reinventing themselves, which usually just means after five albums of the same formula, they changed it up a tiny bit, slowing or speeding up the tempo, more or fewer ballads, maybe throwing in a synthesizer for good measure. Bowie's knack for reinvention was universal - from persona, to dress, to hair style, to manner of speech, and certainly to the music.
Much like the preceding icons, Bowie was perhaps one of the only musicians who could completely disappear for ten years - absolutely silent - then reemerge to a frenzied fan base, ready with open arms to accept the gift of a new album, The Next Day. And so, too, does Blackstar truly become an album for the fans. An album full of experimentation, vastly different from anything he's done before, and deep in there, so incredibly personal. I remember listening to it for the first time and by the end, I knew it and felt it so deeply in my heart - this was it. This would be the final album. He is saying goodbye. I just didn't imagine he would ascend into the heavens only two days later.
It's hard to imagine a world without Bowie. But more so, it's harder to imagine a world where Bowie never existed in the first place. So many people cite Bowie as a major inspiration. Arguably, the entirety of post punk may never have occurred as so much of the aesthetic and style drew heavy influence from glam rock in general and David Bowie specifically. It feels laughable almost to even call Bowie a legend. As I've said, Bowie truly was everything for us.
A full thirty-six hours have elapsed since I first learned of Bowie's passing. The tears have finally dried up, at least until I see like-minded friends and we shine each other that fated smile that inevitably leads immediately to tears and that all too familiar heartache. I am finally able to listen to some of his music again, but the void still remains, the knowledge that this is it. This is all there will ever be of the genius that was Bowie. The man who fell to earth has finally returned home...a starman.
Today, January 8, 2016, marks the 69th birthday of the Thin White Duke himself, Mr. David Bowie. And in grand style, Bowie celebrates his day with style - releasing his 25th studio album, Blackstar.
David Bowie's 25th album, Blackstar
Blackstar in many respects follows the map laid by its self-titled opening track - longer tracks on the whole, far less of an angry tinge as was heard on his previous album, The Next Day, and a far more experimental musical backdrop than certainly the previous album, but perhaps even more so than his actual experimental phase of albums in the 2000s before his ten year silence.
The album opens on the ten minute long opus, which we've reviewed previously. What still fascinates me most about this song is that it's effectively two songs separated by a musical semicolon - the first four-ish minutes being one song and the remaining six a similar, related, yet distinct song, yet it's all packaged into one.
One slightly annoying realization about Blackstar is that two of the songs had actually been previously released. The first of these, "'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore," was sadly not one that impressed me much to begin with (this and "Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)" were previously released on the 10" Record Store Day limited vinyl for "Sue" while "Sue" saw a second release on the 2014 Bowie compilation, Nothing Has Changed).
"'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore" does receive a slight update from its 2014 counterpart, however. Where the early version was a barrage of sounds and essentially a wall of noise, nothing discernible, the music has now been cleaned up, vocals lifted above the music (previously they felt completely buried) and the jazz-influence dialed down a little (don't get me wrong - it's still very much there, but it is toned down a touch from the 2014 version). Still a peculiar song, the face-lift for Blackstar is a welcome sight.
Next is "Lazarus," the second single released ahead of the album and receiving the music video treatment. Whenever Bowie releases a new single ahead of the album, you often have to wonder if the album will sound like that. Often times, it won't, especially when looking at the first single. We heard that with The Next Day when "Where Are We Now?" was first released - a slow, retrospective number that we found out was like nothing else on the rest of the album. The second single, however, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" turned out to sound much like the remainder of the album. In that manner, so, too, does "Lazarus" follow that small pattern. A very smooth jazz-based song, "Lazarus" feels to me much like what early jazz-filled New York City may have been like (mentioning that bit only because Bowie sings about first arriving to New York City in this song). The song is slower paced, calmer even, and deep down in your stomach, a knot of anxiety begins to form. More on that shortly.
Following "Lazarus" is the redressed version of "Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)." As with "'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore," this version is a much tighter, dressed down version of the 2014 release. Much of the original jazz work is reinterpreted and written to guitar now, instead of saxophone as previously. The move gives the song more vibrancy and drives it forward, reminding me some of the interplay between electronics and guitars found in songs like "Hallo Spaceboy." It worked well there and again works well here. If I had been iffy about this song before, this redress clears away the uncertainty for me.
"Girl Loves Me" is a turning point in the album, nodding back to "Blackstar" in some respects and showcases an angry Bowie as he yells out "Where the fuck did Monday go!?!" This is my personal low point in the album. The backing orchestral arrangements and the chorus melodies are interesting, as well as the constant vocal nods back to Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange and the Nadstad language he created for the book. Still a good song, but perhaps the weakest of the lot and the low point of Blackstar.
"Dollar Days" has the feel of letting Mike Garson loose to write the entire music (Garson does not appear on this album, but they piano style is very reminiscent of his work...Jason Lindner does excellent work on this song in particular, but also throughout the entire album). A very jazzy song complete with Donny McCaslin roaring to life an amazing saxophone solo. And deep down, in your stomach once more, the knot begins to tighten.
Blackstar ends with "I Can't Give Everything Away." The song, a meeting somewhere between jazz and 80s new romantic sentiments, brings the knot to the forefront. I distinctly remember thinking this as this song played, and I hope I'm dead wrong. This almost feels like Bowie saying farewell. For real, this time. That Blackstar may be the final album. Goodbye, thanks for all the fish. This is pure speculation on my part - I've never met Bowie, never had the chance even to see him live. And certainly I hope I'm very wrong. But, this song in particular has a feel of "Let's go out on a high note, but without giving it all away." Outside of this speculation, the song itself is a lovely ending to the album, the sort of older gentlemanly goodbye you'd expect from saying farewell to a very old, long time friend.
David Bowie is among the few (and maybe even the only person) who can undergo such incredible transitions and still be rock solid in each of them. We'll keep following you, Mr. Bowie, and remain optimistic that this is far from the end. Now, if we could just talk you into a tour...or even some festivals! That'd be great...
