Watch Savages Mesmerize With Dynamic ‘Adore’ on ‘Colbert’
Savages mesmerized with the bone-chilling, dynamic “Adore” – the centerpiece of the post-punk band’s second LP, Adore Life – Tuesday on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
The performance found singer Jehnny Beth crooning her sparse lines over Gemma Thompson’s icy guitar texture and the droning rhythm section of bassist Ayse Hassan and drummer Fay Milton. “Is it human to adore life?” Beth asked, her question growing in angst and volume at each repetition, jumping an octave at the abrasive climax.
Savages spoke to Rolling Stone in January about the themes of the acclaimed Adore Life. “When we were touring for the last album, I felt things shift between me and the audience, I was receiving so much love and it made me want to react to the people,” Beth said. “I wanted to break the fourth wall.”
“We felt in order to be able to talk about love, we needed to be able to contrast it with something that would oppose it,” added Hassan. “If there were beautiful lyrics, we wanted it to be contradicted by having a really nasty bass line or sharp guitar noise. This record is about the contrast, the lights and the darks of life, of love, of everything. For Savages to write about that kind of topic, we needed something that would fit in with Savages.”