After a six-year break due to a severe case of writer's block, wild-hearted frontman Tim Harrington and his boys have upped the ante upon return with Let's Stay Friends, an excellent record that marks a dramatic stylistic departure for Les Savy Fav. Here, they continue building upon their foundation, which is writing deceptively solid post-hardcore songs with a heavy spattering of angular influence, while leaning forward into a more polished territory of crisp, embellished production. This record is a logical progression from Go Forth, an album that showed the group beginning to stray from their hardcore roots, and here they masterfully blanket their incendiary raw power with touches of piano, horns, dub delays, and other subtle dabs of headphone candy. LSV enlisted the help of some choice studio experts to provide these sugary additives, namely vocalists Eleanor Friedberger (the Fiery Furnaces), Toko Yasuda (Enon), and Nick Thorburn (the Unicorns), with appearances by Emily Haines (Metric) on piano and Joe Plummer (the Black Heart Procession) and Fred Armisen on drums. It's an all-star cast of players, and the band sounds tighter than ever as they propel Harrington's trademark coarse yelp through the distortion of an album filled with potential singles. On "Slugs in the Shrubs" and "The Equestrian" he howls feverishly alongside razor-sharp guitar lines, and then switches to a swooning falsetto in the Spoon-ish numbers "The Year Before the Year 2000" and "Patty Lee." Purists may miss the raw intensity of the band's earlier years, but it's hard to deny that this is simply a great, melody-driven record that crosses over, not quite to the extremity of, say, the Clash's Combat Rock but more like the Dismemberment Plan's Change, into a more stylistic and hook-driven world while maintaining the aggressive edge that makes them such a likeable force. Walking that line is a tightrope act, but Let's Stay Friends does so flawlessly, all the while solidifying that these guys are some of the best in the biz when it comes to crafting angular, idiosyncratic pop tunes -- and that's saying a lot when you go down the lengthy checklist of Gang of Four-referencing, post-hardcore bands that have formed in the past decade. This album was well worth the wait and should win over some new fans and please the old ones too. Best of show.
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 cu
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I've no idea how to pronounce that, but it's apparently Finnish for "Happy Birthday".This dedication goes out to "+Pekka+":http://mog.com/1234chainsaw, our resident philosophy professor and expert in all things "sonic yum-yum".People may call me EMCD, but this guy's been stuffing my hard drive full of goodness since the word "go" around here. Recently, his posted list of Top 30 albums of 2007 l...
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Well, this didn't take that long. With not even three months having passed since we all rang in 2008, Brooklyn party animals Les Savy Fav have announced the release of After The Balls Drop, their first-ever live album documenting the band’s late night/early morning performance at Bowery Ballroom in New York City on January 1st, 2008. The 15-track CD comes out on April 29th, making everyone have.
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Syd Butler, bassist in Les Savy Fav and founder of French Kiss Records, told NME what his dream lineup would be if he were ever asked to curate a festival:Pixies, Interpol and Fugazi ... although he stated he doubts the latter would "ever get back together or play"Ahhh, if only they would play again... I'd fly to Great Britain to see that! Especially if they sounded like this:FUGAZI - "Long Di...
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New York based 'idiosyncratic indie rockers' Les Savy Fav (pronounced lay SAH vee FAHV) have announced they will be holding a contest to see who can create the best video for their song The Equestrian, off their upcoming (September 18) release ??Let's Stay Friends?? (Frenchkiss).??Les Savy Fav??They're calling it the "LSF:LSF" contest (Les Savy Fav:Let's Stay Friends). The ground rules for your...
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I was surfing 7Digital today when I noticed they're giving away a few Les Savy Fav tunes. You can download "The Equestrian" and "What Would Wolves Do" off their album Let's Stay Friends for FREE! 7Digital is great too, their interface is nice and the files are DRM-free. Free Les Savy Fav tunes on 7Digital.comOh, and it's a UK store, with prices in pounds. But I've had no trouble using them ...
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Freakster indie-darlings Les Savy Fav are stepping up their game. Long-time residents of Frenchkiss Records, the label founded and managed by LSF bassist Syd Butler, their new album will still be released on Frenchkiss but will be distributed by Sony BMG. The album, Let's Stay Friends was produced by Chris Zane and includes guest appearances from Emily Haines (Metric), Eleanor Freidberger (Fi...
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Les Savy Fav released their long-awaited full-length album Let's Stay Friends last year, but the singles are still trickling out. "Patty Lee" will be released on February 25th on Syd's own French Kiss Records, of course. Then, the band will gather all their 7-inch singles from the last 10 years into one re-release of their 2004 album titled Inches. AND, there's still just enough time to get ...
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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 cu
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Hurray! A new video from Les Savy Fav is finally here! On the day there latest album is released, Let's Stay Friends, the manly quartet give us the video for "Patty Lee." It's not Peggy Lee, but it might still get a fever burning in ya!Les Savy Fav - "Patty Lee"Les savy fav - patty leeUploaded by epb21http://www.myspace.com/lessavyfavhttp://lessavyfav.com/http://www.frenchkissrecords.com/ban...
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Unique? You Decide....
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From LSF's latest album, Let's Stay Friends. As mentioned in my "previous post":http://mog.com/FishPoisonCon/blog_post/130424, I didn't really get into this album as a whole, but it __does__ have some good tracks. I wouldn't say it was their worst release, but I wouldn't recommend it as introduction to their music either.Personal favorites in no particular order: Brace Yourself, What Would Wolv...
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Hey Gang,Tim Harrington spoke to the podcast recently. His beard is huge.powered by ODEOSubscribe at iTunes,You're nice,Rob
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| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 Pots & Pans |
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| 2 The Equestrian |
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| 3 The Year Before the Year 2000 |
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| 4 Patty Lee |
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| 5 What Would Wolves Do? |
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| 6 Brace Yourself |
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| 7 Raging in the Plague Age |
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| 8 Slugs in the Shrubs |
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| 9 Kiss Kiss Is Getting Old |
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| 10 Comes & Goes |
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| 11 Scotchgard the Credit Card |
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| 12 The Lowest Bitter |
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Click to purchase…
© 2006-2009 Mog Inc. All Rights Reserved
 "Let's Stay Friends")
