• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Oct 06, 2023 Web Exclusive By Ben Jardine

“This album is a burning building,” says Andrew Savage of his second solo album, “and these songs are things I’d leave behind to save myself.” Several Songs About Fire, then, is a fitting name for the 10 songs that signal a (perhaps salvaging) farewell for the singer/songwriter. Savage, best known as a member of Brooklyn-via-Denton quartet Parquet Courts, has left New York City and the United States behind. Where he has gone, how long he will be gone, and whether he is saving himself are all unanswered questions. But what we do know is that these songs are perhaps some of Savage’s most articulate and cutting songs to date.

Savage’s music has always reflected an inner turmoil. Characters as versions of Savage (such as the “Stoned and Starving” Savage, or the scathing “Total Football” Savage), all speaking in poetics, all laboring on this mortal coil, all with a punk aesthetic that masks a largely sensitive and existential dread.

Now the character in question is Savage himself, and he’s letting the listener inside this burning building, if just for a short while.

There’s a tenderness, a quiet solitude at play in this inferno. It’s as if the fire is burning so slowly that the building’s inhabitants can pick out details of the rooms: the sconces, the furniture, the artwork.

That pace is intentional, it reflects a peaceful sobriety: Savage and composer Jack Cooper (of Modern Nature) worked on the songs in pastoral silence, in rural England, attempting not to wake Cooper’s sleeping daughter in the adjacent room. According to Savage, every song had to be stripped down to its most basic parts and be playable on just one instrument, in this case, an acoustic guitar. That intimacy and quiet make the burning building of the album even more vivid.

In addition to Cooper, the record features longtime friends and collaborators, such as Cate Le Bon (on piano and bass), drummer and vocalist Dylan Hadley, and producer John Parish; all bringing their skills and artistic prowess, as well as a penchant for that sought-after quiet.

In truth, and despite the quiet, Several Songs About Fire is Savage at his loudest and most vocal. But it’s noise that is restrained, a noise not transferred by shouting but instead by tight-lipped Cohen-esque observation and lyrical portraits.

“Where do I go after one dozen laps/Around the sun in this town/With the people it traps?,” sings Savage on the album’s second track, “Elvis in the Army”—a track that paints Savage as the pseudo-martyr of Presley, eating beans from a can and praying for the longevity of rock n’ roll. “Riding Cobbles” plays like an avant-garde Euro-waltz, signaling a new leaf for Savage. The album’s first single, “Thanksgiving Prayer,” is a self-referential epic that pins Savage at the center of questions about mercy, sacrifice, and individuality.

There’s a lot to unpack in Several Songs About Fire, but what shines through is Savage’s songwriting ability. He is surely one of the finest lyricists working in music today. (www.a-savage.com)

Author rating: 8/10