Hearing about hype bands from England on the blogosphere is nothing new but on Thursday night at Webster Hall, the sight of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs nodding intently and Yoko Ono smiling from ear-to-ear while watching the Savages showed that these lauded Londoners are the real deal. And then some.
Their darkened post-punk tones are not simply something you listen to with your ears; you feel them vibrating through your bones and slugging you in the stomach. The Savages experience is physical as much as it is aural, and it left the sold-out crowd simultaneously drained and exhilarated. While their debut album “Silence Yourself” is already a shoo-in for one of the best of 2013, the contrast between that and the way they delivered those songs from the stage was remarkable.
Backed with an intense strobe-light show, the velocity of “Shut Up” and “City’s Full” was such that at times the band sounded as though they were about to take off. Key to that feeling is their skill as musicians. Drummer Fay Milton is nimble and precise and Ayse Hassan plays bass with staggering brutality, but it’s guitarist Gemma Thompson who makes Savages truly devastating. Her guitar sounds less like an instrument than an implement of medieval torture, something that was especially apparent on the dissonant “Waiting for a Sign” which echoed both Joy Division and Sonic Youth at their most sinister.
The hypnotic dance beats of “F - - kers” was an emphatic (and brilliantly titled) answer to critics who blast the band as having only have one trick.
The three of them are also blessed with a magnetic singer/frontwoman in the shape of Jehnny Beth who rounds off the Savages’ fierce sonic attack with twitchy body movements and glassy-eyed stares aplenty. She possesses a guttural scream that sounds like someone being flayed alive and it cuts through the noise with shocking ease. What’s even more engrossing is some of the things she sings about. Desires of the flesh are a recurring theme, especially on “She Will” and the wild thrash of “Hit Me” but simple titillation is not the intention. The fact that Beth can explore female sexuality without resorting to skimpy outfits and falling back on cheap double entendres only highlights the fact that she is sadly a rare person in the world of music.
After burning out in the blaze of closer “Husbands,” Savages were done. They played no encore and frankly, there was no need. The preceding hour had been enough to state their case as one of the most accomplished new prospects of the last few months, if not the last few years. At this stage of their lifespan, most acts are still painfully wet behind the ears. Not Savages. They’re clearly ready to take on the world and on the strength of this show, they will almost certainly win.