A Savage- Thawing Dawn
Thawing Dawn is the debut solo record of Parquet Courts member Andrew Savage. The album sounds vaguely between his hometown of Denton, Texas and current home in Brooklyn, New York, going between traditional folk instrumentation in “Phantom Limbo” to the fractured, metropolitan, structure of the albums closing track “Thawing Dawn”. Imagine Lucinda Williams meets The Fall. Thawing Dawn is a compilation of songs Andrew Savage has written over the past 10 years studio recorded with a band and released.
“Buffalo Calf Road” covers the violent American expansion into the Midwest, and the defeat of General Custer by Buffalo Calf Road Woman. “Wild, Wild, Wild, Horses” is a sincere, seven minutes of quiet lyrics about a former lover, set to distorted guitars and keys with reverb. “Ladies From Houston” was written after Savage went to a friend’s late father’s house, and his words offering glimpses of discrete memories, like a old stack of photographs. Thawing Dawn feels more incidentally arranged than other releases from Parquet Courts, and lacks the crispness of albums like Light Up Gold, while maintaining the appeal of Andrew Savage’s often obtuse but usually resonant lyrics. In the last stanza of the final song, Savage offers some commentary on the album itself, singing “Of all the pieces I’ve combined/ Still the cruelest mixture yet/ Is the softness of a thawing dawn/ And the hardness of regret”.
Thawing Dawn is an introspective album with enough experimentation and poetics to be absorbing while periodically using cliches of social alienation in a big city and his tiredness of New York City. Thawing Dawn affirms Andrew Savage’s ability as a musician, not only in shouting at sweaty crowds as Parquet Courts, but whispering into your ear during a long walk home.
https://asavage.bandcamp.com/album/thawing-dawn
Parquet Courts have a new album, Wide Awake!, out May 18th on Rough Trade Records.