Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
MojoSep 27, 2017Like all of Numan's greatest work, Savage sounds timeless. [Nov 2017, p.100]
-
Sep 20, 2017Numan's appropriation of Arabic musical patterns, textures and instruments can make for mildly uncomfortable listening at first, but on repeated plays these are the moments that really stand out. His decision to directly incorporate these less familiar (to the western ear) musical mores into his already alien-sounding style pays off.
-
Sep 19, 2017Savage is a compelling cautionary tale of what may happen if we’re too complacent to give a damn about future generations. It’s also a stunningly sharp and diverse collection of songs from a living legend.
-
Sep 18, 2017That Numan can still juggle melodrama and musicality with such effortlessness is impressive, to say the least, but that he can make it so compelling is what sets him apart from his old guard new wave contemporaries.
-
Sep 18, 2017There’s a reason he's thought of as one of the pioneers of electronic music; he manages to create more than just simple sounds--instead, there’s an idea that the big picture is far bigger than you’d ever care to realise.
-
UncutSep 22, 2017The industrial-inflected sound Numan has explored since Sacrifice remains a bedrock, but "Bed Of Thorns" and "Pray For The Pain You Serve" realise the concept neatly, blending crunchy synth riffs and brooding choruses with fragments of Arabic melody. [Nov 2017, p.35]
-
MagnetSep 18, 2017Call it the musical equivalent of Cormac McCarthy's similarly brutal The Road. [No. 146, p.59]
-
Nov 29, 2017Numan allows his compositions some room to breathe by occasionally slowing the tempo while the mood morphs from murky to majestic as he lets his Berlin-era Bowie influence seep in. His glassy futuristic voice is as crystalline as ever and fits snuggly within the slick production.
-
Oct 11, 2017There’s much to admire about Savage, but it’s definitely one that you have to be in a particular mood to enjoy.
-
Q MagazineSep 18, 2017Numan and collaborator Ade Fenton complement the narrative with a sand-blown, Eastern gothic mood, featuring use of Arabic scales, which evoke a desert within the human soul as much as any hypothetical desert Earth. [Oct 2017, p.107]
-
Sep 18, 2017Tunefulness permeates the intensity like rays of sunshine.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 9 out of 11
-
Mixed: 0 out of 11
-
Negative: 2 out of 11
-
Oct 1, 2017
-
Sep 27, 2017