A veritably blistering opening salvo of City's Full, I Am Here and Hit Me insinuates that the omnipresent British Sea Power parallel shows little sign of ebbing away all that soon, the trio sounding overtly akin to their Brighton cronies at their most fleetingly ferocious (in other words to The Spirit of St. Louis). Beth however demonstrates little care for such superfluous comparison as she growls, shivers, quakes and jives through their thirty, stamping on the pedals that instil a great terror in her impeccable vocals as though they were irksomely inextinguishable Marlboro butts. Eventually the allegorical distance between she and we (for physically the quartet are tonight as flickers-of-spit-in-the-face as the songs themselves) diminishes: "Are you OK? We're Savages." The reposte to her inquisition may only be a resolute absolutely; the response to her latter affirmation a sensation of unearthed revolution. She enquires prior to the jittery jangle of Give Me A Gun, its designation on scrawled setlist seeming to trade 'Gun' with 'Fun' and whilst that'd pertain to a gramatically unorthodox vernacular to be classed as both bad and ugly, the track itself proffers a great deal of 'Fun'. In a dearth and dank manner, of course. Flying To Berlin meanwhile sounds like Echoes-era The Rapture trodden down unapologetically into soggy forest floor (before the New Yorkers quite lamentably lost it obviously), whilst the workmanlike efficiency and thunder of Husbands, Thompson's harmonics adding to the harmonious dissonance of the overall aesthetic, demonstrates a precise conciseness missing from much music experienced in such gentrified surrounds way out east.
In fact perhaps the only qualm with Savages (beyond the exasperatingly distinct lack of digestible material available, online or otherwise) is that they're almost too ideal a band. For each song from their eight-strong setlist reeks of a sagacious intellect and each translates immaculately to a live context: they know precisely what they're doing and they're doing it ludicrously well. It's arguably the sort of murky strand of dead evocative post-punk any indie would trade away all publishing rights to have indelibly etched into their books; ready headliners set to blossom like the wreath of blooming rose sprawled out across the stage. Indeed in addition, there's enough colour in the set and polychromatism in the glare emanating from overhead spotlights to dispel the notion of Savages as a two-dimensional, black and white band as every promo photo and that one video would have us believe as beneath a darkened sky there's something quite brilliant, and once the fish inevitably bite there's enough hooks to keep an oceanic expanse enthused. The weather can't feasibly be worse come September 1st and certainly it's indubitably worth frequenting The 1234 Shoreditch for Savages' show alone...
