Lisa Savidge: Lisa Savidge

Lisa Savidge: Lisa Savidge
Lisa Savidge is a five piece ensemble of men. The group released their self-titled Sophomore album February 11th via Black Cactus Records. At twelve tracks long, you’d expect the album to be just about right lengthwise but five songs are at least two parts long which adds up on the clock.
Unfortunately, the multipart songs give the album a feel of a symphonic performance. That doesn’t have to be bad, but the movement of the songs doesn’t always need it. The opening track “Building Your Own HAM Radio (Pts. 1&2)” seems like a roughly five minute song. The medium tempo song rests on the cusp of something you’d hear from Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It has a layered feel musically, culminating with some great keywork by Nick Gortari. The other mulitpart songs go out the window.
“New Song (Pts. 1&2)” starts off with heavy guitars and distortion that make it seem like some hard rock is about to be performed but once the singing begins the song turns into some macabre phantasy. The guitars disappear and sadness and depression sap the life out of the song. About a minute and a half in, the mood changes and you really feel as though the next track has cut in; indie pop takes over what was once morbid and dark. I did a double take while making sure that I was still listening to the same song.
The album sounded best on the tracks “Holding Me” and “90 Pills (Live Mix)”. On the former, Lisa Savidge had a late 80’s, early 90’s rock sound. I could picture the song being played back at the turn of that decade. The latter sounds more like early 90’s rock with a pinch of punk added to it.
Overall, it became difficult to listen to the album. At various times lead singer Dan Somers’ voice just didn’t do the songs justice which is disappointing, as they make some very fine music. “Moment of Silence” was one of my favorite tracks and it was only an
instrumental. The rock and violin feel with the symphonic aspect bring me back to GY!BE. I guess it’s something about violins and electric guitars that gets me all worked up but as a whole work, I found the album to be quite ordinary.
Rating: 4.1/10
MP3: Lisa Savidge “Fire Exiting”
Buy: iTunes