The Savage Hearts, led by former The Strypes drummer Evan Walsh, has emerged with a distinct storyline. The Irish rockers have appeared to worship the alter of highly uncelebrated local rock ’n’ roll hero Eddie Cruizer, self-professed to create a wild and unhinged rock frenzy. Whether they leave more questions unanswered than not is up to the audience, but they have an undeniable sense of cult following and unbridled stamina.
The latest from The Savage Hearts is the garage rock frenzy ‘Speeding Bullets/Only Lovers Left Alive’. The singles are like a rocket about to take off, with all of the energy in their reserves getting a sudden and fiery release into the atmosphere. Every instrument is left to charge up a stadium’s worth of music, crashing into one another in a noisy tsunami that grows into an all-surrounding fizz.
The band’s ability to bring this sheer power to the recording echoes a serious live feel, where every instrument doesn’t need to be polished within an inch of its life and is instead left to become an individual powerhouse. The vocals are a guide to the organised chaos, and audiences will have just as much fun as the performers.
Evan explains the project, “The music of The Savage Hearts began to grow organically during the lockdown a few years ago. My previous band The Strypes had wound down just before that and obviously the extended time off gave me plenty of time to think about what sort of music I really wanted to do next as well as collect ideas and stockpile demos. A lot of the songs were co-written with my good friend Ste Kelly from the Irish indie band Raglans including our two singles ‘Gang War’ and ‘Speeding Bullets’. The main aim was to capture the spirit of the music that always moved and excited me the most – raw fuzzy garage rock mixed with blues, soul, punk, and pub rock all with the added menace of psychedelia for good measure!”
