Silence Yourself
At 11 tracks in 38 minutes, the full-length debut by this London band of women is a constant, compact fury: Emotional confrontation and sexual vengeance executed with martial discipline, at mostly blinding speed. Savages do not write songs as such. “I Am Here,” “No Face” and “Husbands” are stark whirls of one-sided argument, with Jehnny Beth shooting across the turbulence – Ayse Hassan’s grunting bass, Gemma Thompson’s scorched-treble guitar – in a pagan-priestess wail. The precedent is clear: Eighties post-punk, particularly the bony-riff geometry and dublike shadows of Killing Joke and early Siouxsie and the Banshees. So is the freshened, visceral impact.