Les Savy Fav, Let's Stay Friends (Frenchkiss)

Six out of ten starsThe new Les Savy Fav album is really good. You should totally check it out. Oh. You’re still here. One of those, eh? Details, details – don’t want to just trust me, do you? You want a full-fledged review, do you? All right, fine then. What sort you looking for? A captivating anecdotal opening? A chronological back-story? A technical review of the musicianship? A cookie cutter review full of useless name-dropping and reference making? A clever attempt at avoiding all of the above. Oh wait… Like I said, Let’s Stay Friends is really good and you should totally trust me. That is if you dig frenzied (quality) punk rock. I know a lot of you out there are sort of over this – you’ve moved onto something less … redundant. I understand how you feel: I’ve tired of much of the contrived crap too. But I haven’t yet written off the possibility that there are still bands out there making good quality rock ‘n’ roll. I know it’s not always easy to trust this, what with the millions of shit bands and MySpace wasteland. I know how you feel. I’ve been burned too. The more bands that form, the easier it is to be let down. You can count on Les Savy Fav though. They’ve been pretty reliable since they first got together in 1995, dropping one quality album after another (Friends is their fourth). They write great songs, boast interesting lyricism and play with fervent, unabashed energy – what more do you want from a punk rock record? Even better: They also mix it up to keep things compelling. Friends is not one long song. Sometimes it’s screaming and thrashing, bolstering up notions of kicking down doors (“Raging In The Plague Age”), Other times (”What Would Wolves Do?”) it’s danceable like disco (well, kind of), conjuring images of late nights pierced by flashing strobe lights – in a club full of weirdo punks anyway. And even while they’re clever enough to switch things around, their sound is held together by an idiosyncratic edge that defines them. They're one of those bands that’s hard to mistake for any other. Unless you hear the sad acoustic closer, “Death Of A Salesmen”, then you’ll have no clue. Cause that could be any band from anywhere. But anyway, Les Savy Fav, based in Brooklyn, is lead singer Tim Harrington, guitarist Seth Jabour, bassist Syd Butler and drummer Harrison Haynes (a bunch of art school dudes). They know how to play. They tear it up. Real good. Loads of talent. Seriously, you should check them out. Oh and if you like the name-dropping thing, I ripped this from their "MySpace":http://www.myspace.com/lessavyfav “…a number of notable musicians were brought in- Eleanor Friedberger from the Fiery Furnaces sings a duet with Tim, Nicholas Thorburn from Islands/Unicorns does some back up, ALL the members of Enon make appearances, SNL's Fred Armisen plays drums on “Pots & Pans” and “Patty Lee,” Emily Haines from Metric plays piano and Joe Plummer from Modest Mouse/The Black Heart Procession adds drumming that helped to expand the overall sound.” So there you have it.