Retro, Revamped: The Savage Hearts Release Newest EP 'Radio Silence'
- Elizabeth Guest
- Dec 15
- 2 min read
As garage/psych rock’n’roll outfit The Savage Hearts deliver their debut EP Radio Silence we ask Elizabeth Guest to review it
A musician who can boast having three top ten albums with blooming blues outfit The Strypes, along with supporting slots for the likes of Paul Weller and The Stone Roses, drummer Evan Walsh is no stranger to sonic success. Yet it is his newest outfit, The Savage Hearts, who are making waves on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Formed in Cavan, Ireland and consisting of Walsh, guitarist and vocalist Darragh Muldoon, bassist and vocalist Stef Byrne, and saxophonist and keyboardist Eugenio Collinassi, The Savage Hearts have a penchant for potent rock and roll. Akin to The Rolling Stones’ 1972 album, Exile on Main St., the fourpiece confidently harness the genre’s various branches, all to similar successful extents. Such a feat is remarkably explicit with their newest EP, Radio Silence.
With Radio Silence, The Savage Hearts have revamped and repackaged the retro for the modern ear. In spite of high-power guitar licks and pounding percussion, the Irish four piece never once lose the melodiousness that made rock and roll so mighty.
A four track EP, Radio Silence oozes with seasoned swagger from start to finish. From the opening chords of the EP’s titular track, The Savage Hearts craft a sound that would fit seamlessly within the discography of Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers. A tussle between a wiggling earworm of a guitar riff and a wailing saxophone propel the title track, whilst Walsh’s rampant percussive train gives the song a calamitous charge.
Across all tracks, Muldoon’s vocals possess a retro rasp, yet none more evident than on the snappy single This Time Tomorrow. Fostered upon a musical marriage between the soulfulness of rhythm and blues and rock’s more blistering attitude, This Time Tomorrow practically brims with vintage grit. It is jubilant, danceable yet dangerous - just like all good rock and roll should be.
The EP promptly takes a coarser tone with the final two tracks, the heavier Dead Man’s Lottery and the almost dystopian 20 Million Miles to Earth. The former is a catapulting crash course in their more ferocious, fervent side. The ominous recurring line of “I drew six numbers in the Dead Man’s Lottery” is a lyrical knell, a foreboding, but equally fabulous, audible omen.
On the other hand, 20 Million Miles to Earth is four and a half minutes of the listener teetering on the edge of a musical cliff face. The track pushes and pulls, prods and pokes with rampaging guitar and driving basslines, before culminating in a gritty crescendo. 20 Million Miles to Earth is a fitting close for an EP which has expertly employed all rock and roll has to offer.
With Radio Silence, The Savage Hearts have revamped and repackaged the retro for the modern ear. In spite of high-power guitar licks and pounding percussion, the Irish four piece never once lose the melodiousness that made rock and roll so mighty.
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