Savage Republic is a resurrection of the underground LA music scene of the 80s. The band reformed in 2004 with a different line-up and have since released 2 albums after a gap of almost 20 years. That’s probably why they introduced themselves as ‘old guys’ when they played a free in-store at Amoeba on Wednesday night, some old guys who gave a hypnotizing performance of nine songs that blew away people around me.
Their music is a world by itself, a foreign country populated by a dark and mysterious sound built around a blend of punk, industrial sound, krautrock, surf guitars and even tribal screams. It’s quite a dense universe, exotic and expansive, with rare but powerful vocals and this large metal barrel in the middle of the stage, violently beaten up during a few songs. During their performance, all about confrontation and dark anger, they were making harsh faces, as if the music was coming from deep, deep inside, they were shouting their guts out, and were wrapping them by this complex and raw sound.
‘1938’ had this Nick Cave’s announcing-the-end-of-the-world dark vocals, while ‘Walking Backwards’ was this aggressive post-punk, Dick Dale-ish instrumental. Beside the mix of gravitas and almost military attack reigning over the music, they didn’t have a song that sounded like the next one, and ‘Mobilization’ was this industrial big barrel number topping the drumming, born from sweat, hard labor and an ethnic vibe. If Thom Fuhrmann, on guitar and bass, was the main singer, Ethan Port on guitar and drum barrel, was making the most primal-ethnic shouting on some songs such as ‘Trek’, that was growing a tribal groove over dark percussion, an hypnotic heavy bass and tortured screams. Then came the powerful ‘Year of Exile’, an ascending atmospheric instrumental, which sounded like the soundtrack of a western with an Arabic vibe, the totally original punk shout-out, ‘Viva La Rock ’n’ Roll’ and its Bauhaus darkness and the other dark surfer ‘Marshal Tito’. Fuhrmann dedicated their last song to one of their band members who had just died and to his cute son with whom he had been interacting during the whole set.
Their performance was very powerful, like a menace surfacing from the past because it can’t to be forgotten,… and this is a very good surprise.
Setlist
1938
Walking Backwards
Mobilization
Siege
Trek
Year of Exile
Viva La Rock ’n’ roll
Marshal Tito
Siam 