Customer Reviews

Inches

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This album is great; I'll just start off by saying that. However, you may not think so at first. For those of you who like to listen to everything, this band might come off as a bit random or "weird" at first listen, but I promise, it'll become more and more familiar every time you listen to it. It's almost like the brain isn't ready for it the first few times, but it adapts and begins to understand its subtle elegances.

I started out just liking a song or two, but recently I've come to love all of them. I hope you can give this band a chance, it'll be well worth it.

Yes, this is what I've been waiting for: intelligent, slightly abstract, "punk" influenced, barn-burning, jaw-dropping rock and roll. Tim Harrington can sure turn a phrase. The DVD is more comical than essential, but the CD is transcendental.

I think that the person who gave five stars to Chris Isaak's Christmas album is right. Les Savy Fav is just another band that jumped on the recent new-wave revival bandwagon. Except they were so bad that they needed to get a head start, so they jumped on this bandwagon way back in 1996. The bandwagon was just an unassembled pile of lumber at this point and all of the members of Les Savy Fav got splinters in their feet. Some guy in a band twenty-five years ago got a splinter stuck in his hand. Lars Sarvy Fav be a bunch of copycat frauds!

For real, Les Savy Fav is a very fun band. They write consistently good songs and I encourage you to give them a listen. They are genuine, talented and intelligent men who throw a splendid party at their live shows. One time, I put "Inches" in my portable CD player and its sheer intensity gave me the power to ride my bike thirty miles to my grandmother's house in the city. Sweat Descends is my favorite song.

In my own opinion, this is Les Savy Fav's highest quality release. This compilation contains LSF's most excellent tracks. My personal favorites were jammed into the center of the tracklist. They include the Carly Simon reference heavy "One Way Widow," and the original versions of "Reprobates Resume" and "No Sleeves." I thought both were much better on their latest album, "Go Forth," but they are still highly credible here. The live videos on the DVD capture Les Savy Fav's intense live energy very well. I would've like to have seen more DVD material, because the music videos look like they were on a heavy budget, but I'm perfectly content seeing "Who Rocks the Party" live.

Les Savy Fav are incredible. This is an incredible album. It collects nine 7"s from their career so far, including my personal favorite, an early version of Blackouts which will just blow your socks off!

The early songs are so full of spastic energy and great lyrics you can't help but grin as you dance. The later songs are also full of jerky nervous-tick energy, and have even better lyrics, but they also have some touches of electronica, which are never gratuitous but just add another subtle layer to the songs. So now you're kind of grinning, dancing, and thinking all at the same time. Which is nice...

I know some people thought Go Forth was a little overproduced. For those people I think Inches will be like the LSF equivalent of Fugazi's Furniture EP, a reminder of why you love them so much. For people who haven't heard LSF before, this is a great place to start as it gives you 18 snapshots from 9 different phases of their career.

(If you haven't heard them before, I suppose they're kind of like a version of Gang Of Four that didn't grow up under Thatcher in Leeds in the rain reading Marx... and with a bit more melody... and some glitter.)

I think this album is an absolute must have for everyone, basically.

I was introduced to this album during late November of '07. It is a compilation of Les Savy Fav's various 7" LPs. As such, each of the tracks sound wildly different from one another, and there is a progression of their sound here.

As many have said, first-time listeners may have trouble wrapping their mind around it. The reason is that Les Savy Fav eschew conventional rock form in favor of unique vocals, furious riffs of justice, and a little dash of self-indulgence thrown in. Most conventional rock songs follow a predictable pattern of verses, followed by chorus, followed by more verses, etc. The main verses may have different lyrical content, but are sung the exact same way. Think Nirvana's 'Come As You Are' as a good example of this. The reason I explain is that Les Savy Fav, as a general rule, seem to throw this out of the window completely. For example, on "Reprobates Resume", the catchy chorus of 'please go easy on me' doesn't kick in until the last minute of the song, where it ends the track. Other times, the chorus starts off the song, such as in 'Meet Me at the Dollar Bin'. Many songs change tempo, or take a different direction midway through the song.

Les Savy Fav's frontman is a great lyricist, offering up inventive, fresh lyrics. He also has a penchant for self-indulgence. Some of the tracks, notably 'Hello Halo, Goodbye Glands', 'Knowing How The World Works', 'The Sweat Descends', have long, repeated stretches of the same riffs, or seem to have an ending that goes on for far too long. They still make it work on those tracks, though, and it gives them a stylistic flair that's makes you wonder what's going to happen next.

The guitar-work and drum-work are the real stars here. These riffs are so addictive you won't be able to help moving your arms and fingers into position and imitating with your best rock face. They're that good. They pound when they need to, and hypnotize when they don't.

This album is good enough to make me want to check out their other albums. If you're a fan of alt rock, noise rock, etc. then you would do well to give this album AT LEAST 3 listens.

Some folks call this CD art rock, some call it late 70's / 80 's power punk - with a little electronica thrown in at times,
some call it alternative, call it what ever you like but this album is slam dunk. 95% of the media reviews concerning Inches were positive, so I went out and bought it and I'm glad I did, nice art rock punk record, at least that's how the record industry folks are labeling it. There's nothing really new here or innovative but LSF are a great band with a tight sound. It's unfortunate we had to wait 8 years or so to get a great compilation of B-sides ep's to make a unbelievable classic record, but better late then never, at least we have it. For the most part this album kicks ass. If you're a music lover, you need this in your record collection. There's only one bad track on the album, imo , that's reformat (live), it's in spoken word format. Even though some of these tracks have been around for awhile, I think this is one of the year's best records so far, (even if it is a compilation). When people buy this album they must remember these tracks were not on full lenght albums. Anyway, my advice to you is --> GO PURCHASE THIS NOW AND ENJOY!!!!!!

i have to admit the only thing i'd heard from LSF before purchasing this album was the song "in these woods," mighty fine tune by the way. now, punk muzik is not what i traditionally listen to, but LSF have that borderline pop sensibility. yes, they did jump on the 80's bandwagon, but it is their earlier work that is far superior. at first i thought the singer's voice would get annoying after a while, but the grooves on this compilation are so infectious that i got sucked in and i could never take this cd out of the stereo even when i tried to.

Les Savy Fav's music and lyrics-- the two are inseparable-- are often achingly perfect. This group makes incredible, unexpectedly brilliant music-- and on this CD, you can trace their development (the earlier songs are less subtly orchestrated, but still fine). All right, Les Savy Fav is brilliant most of the time (a few tracks are weak). Some songs make sense right away, musically and lyrically. But sometimes the words are like sheep's entrails-- you know they tell your future, but you can't quite make out what they say. But the spine tingles anyway with the promise of it all.

This is one cool band. They are fearless. They have been releasing singles over the years. They have released albums too. This CD collects all the singles they have done over the past eight years. They are wild and unpredictable and sounds like a band with great ambition. "Meet Me In The Dollar Bin" is a good joke that forms good rock sounds out of chaos. There is a lot of accidents and elements of chance in the music of Les Savy Fav. I think a few of them studied physics in a University. "Hold On To Your Genre" has influenced every band in New York City. Every person who bought this record formed a band that day. Now we have a bunch of bands in New York City with weird band names. Where can one get food stamps?