★★★★★
?????????? Rambling around those swampy crossroads of punk/soul/rockabilly Barrence Whitfield and The Savages are creating that garage lo-fi R & B that just rattles and shakes like 50?s boogie-woogie on a three day bender. The Boston based collective throws down with abandon, teetering on the edge of the stage, but never collapsing off of it. Whitfield's voice screeches and screams mid way between Little Richard and Screaming Jay Hawkins as The Savages propel the fury forward...
- www.glidemagazine.com
2013-09-13
★★★★★
Tweet Savagely Awesome Way back in the mystical year of 1983, two young men by the names of Barrence Whitfield and Peter Greenberg were working at a little record shop in Boston. As is inevitable with two young musicians left together for long enough, the men formed a band called Barrence Whitfield and the Savages with their mutual friend Phil Lenker. The rock band did a few recordings, but eventually went on a twenty-five-year hiatus, reforming in 2010...
- www.mxdwn.com
2013-08-20
★★★★★
Leave it to Barrence Whitfield and the Savages to write a garage-rock shout-along anthem about classical pianist, composer, character actor, and talk show wit Oscar Levant, the title subject of the third track from this 12-song outing by the reunited stalwarts of Boston's '80s club scene. In their second outing after a 25-year absence, the band continues to offer a punked up reimagination of R&B and Eddie Cochrane-like roadhouse rock, fueled by dirty guitars, honking sax, occasional greasy B-3...
- www.bostonglobe.com
2013-09-17
★★★★★
This is the second album in two years from Boston-based legendary R&B; firestarter Barrence Whitfield. It's also the tenth full-length from a 58-year-old who came to prominence in the late '80s, with a string of invigorating releases that easily pre-date most of the buzz-garnering garage punk acts of the past few years. Thankfully, for traditionalists, Whitfield hasn't lost any of his trademark gusto, howling his way through all 12 of the album's visceral romps...
- exclaim.ca
2013-08-14
★★★★★
The latest album from this veteran Boston combo is a fun, party-rockin' blend of garage-rock, high-energy R&B and jump blues with primal guitar riffs, energetic rhythms and swinging sax accompanying Whitfield's gritty vocals. 7/26/2013
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- kexp.org
2013-07-27
★★★★★
Good god almighty, this is IT!I'm late to the Barrence Whitfield train -- he's been a legend in the Boston area for years -- but one spin of Dig Thy Savage Soul and I was hooked! Whitfield, along with the penultimate garage/rockabilly guitarist Peter Greenberg (DMZ, The Lyres), have made one of the most high energy, butt shakin', punky-soul-garage-rock records in recent memory with their new release...
- www.ink19.com
2013-07-23
★★★★★
Anybody who saw Barrence Whitfield and the Savages during their original heyday 30 years ago remembers them as an exciting live band. Whitfield was one crazy-ass performer who would jump all over the stage and into the audience--sort of the East Coast equivalent of Country Dick Montana of California's the Beat Farmers. Montana croaked from a heart attack back in 1995 while performing at a show in Canada. Whitfield's still with us...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-10-03
★★★★★
Formed in New York in 1983 from the ashes of local underground garage acts DMZ and Lyres, the five-piece Savages were really only ever about one man: Barrence. Taking "the original name I got bullied for at school", Whitfield's persona is a mixture of crazed Little Richard and screaming Fats Domino. Live footage reveals him to be a sweating, frenetic singer unconcerned with what a performance will do to his clothes...
- www.recordcollectormag.com
2011-02-28
★★★★★
Though I really don't believe that Esquerita and the Seeds, say, loom larger in rock history than, say, Gamble & Huff and the Grateful Dead, this time I have to grant dumb-ass obscurantism its due. Whitfield isn't a genuine throwback, but he is a genuine historical oddity--an acceptable Little Richard substitute, with a band that doesn't fake it. He's not crazed or rubber-piped enough to go all the way with a frantic groove, though "Mama Get the Hammer" and "Ship Sails at Six" come close...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
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