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REVIEW: A. Savage’s “Thawing Dawn”

Parquet Courts frontman Andrew Savage released a debut solo album entitled “Thawing Dawn” (Dull Tools, October 13) under the moniker A. Savage. He recruited members of Woods, Ultimate Painting, PC Worship, EZTV, Sunwatchers, and Psychic TV to contribute during the recording process.

Originally hailing from Denton, Texas; Savage wears his roots proudly. This record feels especially alt-country, flavored with slide and steel guitars, narrative-style lyrics reflecting on the American frontier, and an occasional organ solo. He’s even wearing his big boy boots on the album cover.

Fear not, “Thawing Dawn” is not a country album. The second track on the record, “Eyeballs,” sounds just like something fuzzy and buzzy from Parquet Courts’ 2015 record, “Content Nausea.” “If I showed you my eyeballs, maybe you could see I’ve been hurting inside,” he wails.

Savage’s singing voice is passive-aggressively monotonous. Alert, composed, aware, and observational, his songwriting has matured and I like it. The lyrics in “Thawing Dawn” are melancholic and cleverly understated, just like the rest of Savage’s portfolio.

At first listen, I skipped over the third track, wryly named “Wild, Wild, Wild Horses,” because it’s repetitive and I get bored easily. I gave it another listen, though, this time giving more consideration to the lyrics, and A. Savage kept me on the hook. “Starving/ What it feels like mostly, feeding someone else your heart. From a distance/ Feeling like a fool and picking all those thoughts apart. Is it wrong that all I think about is you these days? Did they drag me off, or did I gladly run/ Fast and free into your grips.” It’s simple and the chords are basic, but it’s good. If Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck got stoned with Bob Dylan, and they were both depressed, they’d probably create this song.

The transitions between songs in this record are also noteworthy. Lyrically, melodically, and instrumentally, A. Savage puts intention behind each track’s placement on the record.

The fifth track, “What Do I Do,” is thematically the centerpiece of the album. It’s an 8-minute epic, shifting between organized and repetitive “what ifs” and chaos from guitar feedback and a shrieking saxophone. It would fit nicely onto any of Parquet Courts’s previous albums.

“Thawing Dawn,” is undoubtedly the best cut of the album. It’s a cycling triptych, a true collage of a song moving back and forth between the keyboard chords from “Eyeballs,” a Dylan-esque riff and melody line, and a whirlpool of changing time signatures and rhythmic instability.

One of the reservations I had about this album was that it would feel like a rip off of Parquet Courts. Would Andrew Savage’s plainspoken poetry still land without the band? DUH! This album stands well alone, and I particularly like that Savage used this debut album as a chance to experiment with different sounds.

“Thawing Dawn” received hardly any promotion, and it’s likely to fly largely under the radar, but I really dug this record, and I recommend it highly.

#andrewsavage #parquetcourts #music #albumreview #dull tools #thawing dawn