Savage Pleasure: S/T 12"

Our take: After a demo cassette a few years ago, Toxic State Records unleashes the debut vinyl from New York’s Savage Pleasure into the world. If you haven’t heard Savage Pleasure, the first thing you might think when you listen is “whoa, this band really sounds like Amebix,” and while that’s a fine thing, I worry that belaboring the comparison will get in the way of appreciating what a fantastic album this is. There’s something about the way Savage Pleasure deploys dynamics that keeps me flipping this record over and over. While they pack the LP with hooky metal riffs, Savage Pleasure largely avoids the grand gestures—breakdowns, flashy guitar solos, big chord changes—that form the highlight reels of most hardcore punk records. Instead, their sound churns (a verb I come back to whenever I try to describe their sound), seemingly as regularly as the tides, but like the ocean, possessing an undeniable power. Tempos shift gradually in a Celtic Frost-ian way, with just enough variation to