LONG
LIVE YOU - The Savages (Half a Cow)The redoubtable Half a Cow label has made a name for itself with a roster of quirky slacker-pop, chick rock and indispensable retrospectives (the Missing Links, and The Eastern Dark being the most prominent). Owner Nic Dalton
shows
there's another string to the bow with this mini-album of ear-pummelling Scandi
guitar skronk.How this Swedish four-piece managed to be on Half a Cow is a story in itself: Band sends a demo - cold - to label honcho. Honcho can't get the little silver disc out of his player, goes apeshit and signs the band before anyone else can get their mitts on 'em. A little more studio work ensues and this monster of a disc is unleashed. (Of course, the fairytale would only be complete if this became a world-altering hit of Nirvana proportions - but you can play a small but important part in that happening by parting with your heard-earned, dear Bar patron.)
Union Carbide Productions are writ large here. So are the Stooges ('natch, when you mention UCP), Beggars Banquet-era Stones and the MC5 which makes for a heady mix. The other combo to spring to mind, at least on the first listen or three,was Mother Superior (the Swedish band, not the L.A. guys of Rollins/Wayne Kramer fame.) If they're not enough reference points, make up your own after you hear it - because hear it you must.
Guitarists Fredrik Andersson and Magnus Osterberg - real surname or what? YOU decide! - really carve a swathe, but it's Daniel Haeggstroem's yowling vocals that give The Savages their distinctive quality. The engine room swings too (not always the case with bands playing this stuff, and a good rhythm section is a Killer App for mine.)
Winning cuts? All of 'em, although "Who on the Bayou" 's speed-crazed growl and the edgy fury of "Heartache" leap out of the speakers just a little more determinedly than the others. Did I mention "Heartache" should have been on the "Funhouse" box set? I just did. - The Barman
