Savages have celebrated 10 years of their ‘Adore Life’ album by sharing a haunting cover of Black Sabbath‘s ‘Paranoid’ and unreleased track ‘Prayer’.
The record marked the second and final studio album from the London quartet, and was released on January 25 2016.
Now, to mark a decade since it came out, the band have shared two previously-unreleased songs from the era.
These include a haunting, piano-led cover of the classic Black Sabbath song ‘Paranoid’, which sees the raging, doom metal hit get transformed into a much more sombre, chilling track.
They have also shared an original song from that era, called ‘Prayer’. The song captures the same aura as the 2016 record, and was recorded at RAK studios in London by Richard Woodcraft, produced and mixed by Johnny Hostile.
The cover of ‘Paranoid’ was recorded by Johnny Hostile and Matt Farrar, produced and mixed by Johnny Hostile. The live performance of the cover was captured on film by Grammy-nominated director Giorgio Testi, and is available to watch below.
“Celebrating 10 years of ‘Adore Life,’ we’re sharing with you two unreleased songs that never made it onto the albums. We left them exactly as they were – no retakes, no remixing. What you’ll hear is precisely how they were first recorded,” said Savages in a new statement.
“To us, they feel like snapshots of a moment in time, and while we’ve never been ones to dwell too much on nostalgia we felt these songs offered a fresh perspective on the band, or at the very least – a gentle reminder of its magic. Enjoy the music and video. It is our gift to you.
“Happy Birthday to ‘Adore Life.’ What a record. What a time.
[[[[[[[EMBED ‘PRAYER’]]]]]]]]]]]
Back in 2016, the ‘Adore Life’ album was celebrated by NME as a record that was “bristled with artistic certitude [and] defined by emotional vulnerability.”
“Like ‘Adore Life’ itself, the answer seems as simple as it does mystifying: pleasure and pain, submission and control, a box of matches you can’t help playing with,” it read.
Savages announced later that year that they would be “taking a break” to pursue other projects.
Singer Jehnny Beth released her first solo record in 2020 – the acclaimed ‘To Love Is To Live’ – which earned a four-star review from NME.
That same year, the singer told NME about how the album was heavily influenced by David Bowie and the shock of his death. “That night I was in L.A., I opened my phone at 3am, saw that [Bowie] was dead and couldn’t sleep so I listened to his music all night,” she said.
“I was obviously really sad, but also very conscious of the fact that death is part of life. One day I’m gonna be gone, so in my core I felt that there was something that I hadn’t done yet – and that was this record.”
Last year the former Savages frontwoman announced her second solo album, ‘You Heartbreaker, You’, was going to arrive on August 29. It was promoted with the singles ‘Broken Rib’, ‘Obsession’, ‘No Good For People’, and High Resolution Sadness’, and later that year the artist went on a 2025 UK and European headline tour to support the release.
“The album is a heart-to-heart so the stage will be eyes-to-eyes,” she said when speaking to NME last year ahead of the album release. “It’s about a moment. I’ve been a huge fan of Fugazi since I was a teenager so there will be elements of that raw, unique energy.”
Going into 2026, the singer has already taken to the stage again, covering David Bowie’s ‘Dollar Days’ at an event at the British Library to mark the 10th anniversary of his death.
She has also embarked on an acting career, and her credits include a successful live music TV show called Echoes, and a 2018 role in a film called An Impossible Love. The latter was an adaptation of French author Christine Angot’s 2015 novel Un Amour Impossible, directed by Catherine Corsini.
As for other members, back in March drummer Fay Milton announced her debut album under the name Goddess. The album was curated and produced by Milton, and arrived on May 30.
Before then, the artist formed Music Declares Emergency in 2019 – which describes itself as “a group of artists, music industry professionals and organisations that stand together to declare a climate and ecological emergency and call for an immediate governmental response to protect all life on Earth.”
Their No Music On A Dead Planet campaign became wildly successful, and has seen backing from the likes of Billie Eilish, The 1975, and Foals over the years.
It has also had shirts designed by Thom Yorke, Joy Division artist Peter Saville and others. Hundreds of bands and musicians have now signed up to Music Declares Emergency’s pledge to revitalise how the music industry tackles climate disaster.
In the year it was launched, Milton spoke to NME about the efforts and stressed how urgent it was for the government to make more of an effort to address climate change.
“To use Greta Thunberg’s analogy, the house is on fire, and there isn’t time for whoever started the fire with their cigarette to quit smoking before saying the house is on fire – it’s on fire now, and we need to fix this,” she said at the time.
“Our government aren’t responding, and that’s a huge thing… People are getting used to the word ’emergency’, but we shouldn’t – it really, really is an emergency. Every single day that we’re not doing something, it’s putting the world in more danger.”
Milton also launched the Sounds Like a Plan podcast in 2021. Hosted alongside journalist Greg Cochrane, the series focused on how the music community is confronting the climate crisis.
The post Savages celebrate 10 years of ‘Adore Life’ with haunting cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ and unreleased ‘Prayer’ appeared first on NME.
