Savage Hearts “Witch And Wizard”

We don’t know how it does it, but New York just seems to be a fertile breeding ground for cool, sleazy, rock n roll bands. Once we saw that Savage Hearts are described as being “mischievous loud rock and roll that dragged itself out of the East River after losing a knife fight with the blues” we kind of felt obliged to check them out!

The album opens with the dirty, sleazy, rock n roll sound of “Art God”, a track that has a timeless punk feel to it. The album has a real ‘dark’ tone to it, as demonstrated by the haunting sound of the title track, “Witch and Wizard”, and the quite terrifying “Werewolf”! The latter song, is a sprawling blues number with a swamp like feel.

There can be no doubting that Savage Hearts are influenced by some of the classic punk/garage rock bands. Tracks like “Vaudeville” have the punk attitude of The Stooges, whilst “Growl” has the feel of a crawling king snake. Speaking of which, there is also an almost Doors’ feel to the more expansive sounding “No Matter”. On “Spirits” they manage to blend all these styles into one song. It begins like a raw, garage blues number, but then develops into a sound which is like The Stooges playing an Oasis track!! That may sound strange, but it works!

Sometimes, a band’s name and their sound are just a perfect fit, and that is certainly the case with Savage Hearts. There is an air of darkness to the tracks on this album and it makes for quite an intense listening experience. However, you kind of feel that they’re still really just a garage, rock n roll band. Those people who were captivated by the presumed dark intensity of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, may well find a far more genuine article in the shape of Savage Hearts.