With fearless approach and razor sharp delivery, Adore Life is so bruisingly intimate that it feels like a surgical hand taking grasp of your gut. When Savages speak, you listen.
Adore Life finds them drilling beneath the surface polish of their influences into a dark, igneous sound that is all their own. It's harder, dirtier and more durable.
It’s dark subject matter, sure, but also irrefutably compelling. And Savages rhythm section helps amp up the urgency,
Defiant, solid, aggressive and powerful are all words which you could level at Adore Life. It’s also an album of supreme confidence, one which has no issue with simply stating its case, of which it is certain.
Adore Life is many things, but the thing it feels most like is a celebration. On one level, it’s a celebration of the fact that guitar-driven rock music is probably here to stay. But it’s also a celebration of life at its strangest, messiest, and most vital.
On Silence Yourself, they were shouting a rallying cry from the rooftops; on Adore Life, they’re shouting a foot away from your face.
It succeeds in shucking off superficial comparison points, reaching for something deeper and more profound.
Almost inevitably, Adore Life overcompensates, but in a good way. This is Savages’ love album: every song concerns the mental turmoil or the physical push and shove of l’amour fou.
Adore Life represents a more considered, nuanced Savages, and though some of the swaggering, aggressive walls of sound that characterised their first effort might have lost some of their edge as a result, their message remains the same: don’t let the fuckers get you down.
More to the point, Adore Life is a life-affirming work that you’re bound to adore.
If there's something incongruous about glowering post-punks Savages making an LP about love, that vanishes when you hear it. Adore Life, the London quartet's second record, is about love as strength and weakness, as excuse for abuse and suffering, as cultural currency and political weapon.
Adore Life is something of a concept album. The theme is love as pain, love as a wounding uncontrollable force, love as brutal catharsis.
Adore Life is as intense, stylistically more varied and complex with a bigger sound, stronger choruses and plenty of melody.
Adore Life is a dramatic record, just like the clenched fist on the artwork: arresting, interesting, and immediate.
In many ways, Adore Life feels more alive than Silence Yourself—in part because it feels more human, in part because it's telling you to be as loud as possible.
It takes real bravery to write an album so honest and exposed, and it takes something more than bravery to do so in way that sounds like you’d batter everyone in the room if they took the piss.
By basing any adjustments on empirical evidence, the band have imbued this second album with a sense of vindication that ‘Silence Yourself’ lacked.
There are tiny blips in momentum, but for the most part Adore Life is a pummelling statement.
A striking second album, the different perspectives Adore Life bring to Savages' music make them sound more vital than ever.
Adore Life is a definite progression for Savages that manages to maintain the feral bark that made Silence Yourself so special. With this album, they've proven that they're a band with substance, staying power and the ability to question everything — and that's worth a lot.
At times, the musical chaos they paint teeters on the hair-thin borderline of being impenetrable, but Savages - as always - get away with it.
Adore Life builds on that sound, and frames it in a contemporary context that is less throwback than thrilling.
‘Adore Life’ sacrifices intensity for heart and with some exploration into the use of space and silence, it could be their perfect album.
Adore Life is a step up in maturity and songcraft, yet still delivers plenty of jagged ferocity. There aren’t any highs on par with the best moments of Silence Yourself, but it is nonetheless consistently strong, and may be more of a grower.
While Savages have upped their game in terms of song craft in Adore Life, starting with the impeccable instrumentation, it doesn’t always favor the task at hand.
Their music is driven by emotions that are almost unprecedented in the genre that gave us Joy Division and Public Image Limited.
Their second album sharpens their instrumental attack, while singer Jehnny Beth exposes her bloody heart -- nearly every song addresses desire as a force that can destroy a lover's identity.
With repetition showing up often on Adore Life, sometimes working to its intended end result, but mostly landing as formulaic and uninspired.
Adore Life is not entirely a misfire, but it’s certainly not an album to be proud about.
More like I adore this genre
To me, this feels like a much different style of Post Punk. It still has the elements, but compared to bands like Squid and BCNR it’s a completely different vibe. Maybe the newer wave is just a completely new sound idk. Either way, this is pretty good. This album has a very energetic dark sound that mostly hits hard. There are also some more subdued moments which is great for a project like this. I think sometimes the voice can wear on me a little but ... read more
The all-lady post-punk quartet Savages return with their anticipated sophomore LP, Adore Life. It is another striking sonic assault from the UK-based group, that once again deliver a ten-track work full of blazing riffs, hammering percussion, and solid performances from the whole collective. Even though some of these tracks are not fully explored in their potential, the quality of Savages' riffs and the energy they bring is undeniable. Adore Life may not be as huge an effort as Silence Yourself ... read more
Hay tantas razones pare darle una oportunidad a cualquier cosa que haga Savages, desde su debut Silence Yourself, la banda marcó una nueva etapa a lo que son las “girls bands”, por el hecho de que ellas tenían algo distinto, esa esencia sediciosa pero autentica, que más que nada resaltaba por ese estilo propio de expresar sensaciones (si se puede llamar así) con la música. Este nuevo material es parecido a su antecesor, pero se siente más ... read more
More like I adore this genre
To me, this feels like a much different style of Post Punk. It still has the elements, but compared to bands like Squid and BCNR it’s a completely different vibe. Maybe the newer wave is just a completely new sound idk. Either way, this is pretty good. This album has a very energetic dark sound that mostly hits hard. There are also some more subdued moments which is great for a project like this. I think sometimes the voice can wear on me a little but ... read more
Adore Life is a very mature album that I really enjoy. It's less percutant but has more subtility in the sound. I really like the thematic here because it's not just about love but more generally humanity (unfortunaly, it's a bit in surface, I really want more in the next album). The issue that you can have with Adore Life is that there are too much slow burn tracks. A simple example is Adore : it's an excellent single with interesting yet simple lyrics, the sound is so refined. But it takes ... read more
1 | The Answer 3:30 | 83 |
2 | Evil 3:36 | 83 |
3 | Sad Person 3:48 | 80 |
4 | Adore 5:03 | 90 |
5 | Slowing Down the World 4:00 | 78 |
6 | I Need Something New 4:38 | 78 |
7 | When In Love 3:10 | 80 |
8 | Surrender 3:24 | 78 |
9 | T.I.W.Y.G. 3:08 | 83 |
10 | Mechanics 5:08 | 70 |
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