Album Review: Savages - Silence Yourself

You've probably heard about Savages by now. For a year or so, they've been the most talked about rock band in the United Kingdom. Their I Am Here EP and Flying To Berlin b/w Husbands single provided a dose of raw energy that is becoming increasingly rare in the guitar world. Silence Yourself pushes this energy even further, and does so with purpose.

Their lyrics are boldly dark and elemental (the titles alone hit with blunt force: She Will, Hit Me, No Face, Shut Up). All of the best songs on the release derive their power from this kind of focused intensity, from the powerfully jarring City's Full to the creeping, percussive sway of I Am Here. Everything on this album functions almost like a threat – on the first chorus, vocalist Jehnny Beth threatens the listener with, “If you tell me to shut up, I'll shut it now”; on No Face, she croons “Don't worry about breaking my heart, far bigger things will fall apart. On Strife, she sneers over a stifling love affair - “they wonder how come I've been doing things with you/I would never tell my mum” – above guitarist Gemma Thompson's apocalyptically distorted sounds. Then there's Hit Me, less than two live-recorded minutes of Beth's panted shouting over Faye Milton's percussion rush, “Will you hit me, I'm ready”. It's the most explicitly punk the band get, and that's the big part of their charm.

Silence Yourself has been extremely deserving of its hype in the build-up to its release, and with good reason; it's upfront, it's real, it's confronting, and as a debut release, it is certainly one of the most exciting pieces of music we will see come out of this year.