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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
LSF built it up again, October 15, 2007
Les Savy Fav's previous release, "Inches", was not an album but a singles collection. Due to its sequencing of newest to oldest, it was easy to forget since it all held together so well. With "Let's Stay Friends", it sometimes feels like the opposite. The opener "Pots and Pans" serves the statement of intent purpose that "Meet Me in The Dollar Bin" did but after that it seems that all bets are off. By picking up the thread from Go Forth, the last full length, LSF are throwing new elements into the mix all over the place. And to further throw us off, the lyrics are far more direct than before. The mood here is more upbeat than what I had come to expect. Yes there are bits of darkness around the edges but this seems to be more about the joy of performance and a sense of comaraderie in the band. And the music gives us that in spades. The music and vocals just fuse together effortlessly. And believe trying to explain what it sounds like to a novice is not easy. You can throw out a bunch of names but nothing really gets it all. You could write paragraphs on the sound of Seth Jambour's guitars alone. Echoing without being dub, fractured but not noise, psychedelic but not noodlingly are good descriptors but, damn! They have a style which points in a lot of directions but it's simply their own. It has the post punk need to experiement and bring new colors to the palette. It has the aggressive force of mid nineties guitar rock before it descended into the cartoonish heavier than thou poses of nu-metal. There is a quirky and humane quality behind all the bombast. On the downside, it may take a couple spins for it to find its way into your skull. And don't bother reading the lyric sheet either. I think it works better coming in through the ear than the eye. Personally I like the 2nd half of the album better. A fun record that doesn't feel stupid. I think there one of the best rock bands going today. For aging indie kids like me anyhow. Four and 1/2 stars.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
So Glad They Didn't Call It Quits, September 18, 2007
Rumors were in the air about Les Savy Fav's demise, but fortunately they've returned to deliver their first full-length CD of brand new material in several years. Even better news: it's a contender for their best yet.
Let's Stay Friends finds the band expanding upon their signature sound. If there's a common thread on the album, it's how it appropriates some tropes of mid-80s and 90s indie music and updates them into the sound of Les Savy Fav. And what's that sound? A little bit of the Pixies, a dash of Fugazi, some PIL, a tad of Six Finger Satellite. Well, the list of subtle influences go on, but Les Savy Fab own them, and make them original.
To me, this sounds like a logical continuation from Go Forth, though that record came out several years ago. It bears more resemblance to that record, in my opinion, than it does to Inches, their compilation from a few years ago.
Most of the twelve tracks feature some of the band's best material yet. Harrington sounds just as unhinged as ever. And the songs veer in unexpected but melodic directions. Sometimes, it seems like LSF squeeze a few songs into one. And their tradmark codas are there---what they've always done best.
Standouts are The Year Before the Year 2000, The Lowest Bitter (one of their best songs ever), Scotchguard the Credit Card, and Kiss Kiss is Getting Old. The album only misses the mark on a few occasions (the tepid, mostly acoustic (!) number "Comes and Goes." Still, they're trying new things, and it's not entirely out of place on this record.
In short: one of the best albums of the year. I hope LSF sticks around and makes more records, even if we have to wait 5 or 6 years to hear the next.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Cold hearted optimism, September 19, 2008
The title of this review comes from an interview I read last year with LSF's Tim Harrington. The passage from the interview goes:
"An area of interest for me lyrically," he (Tim) explains, "is to be able to address whatever the harshest and most negative elements are in life and society and defy that, not with a pie-eyed optimism, but with a really cold-hearted optimism. Don't expect the world to change. Change yourself. Change your perception of it."
This idea comes across in a number of songs on Let's Stay Friends, which in my opinion is their best album to date and easily the best rock album of 2007. "The Year Before the Year 2000" and "Kiss, Kiss is Getting Old" touch on what he was talking about, and "The Lowest Bitter" - the album's passionate and fiery closer - says it perfectly.
This is an incredibly fun and optimistic album, and their songwriting and playing has gotten even better with this latest release. I love how these guys are just hardcore perfectionists when it comes to the final product - always shooting for better. "The Equestrian" is an instant classic and one of their best songs ever, an infectious rocker. "Patty Lee" is the catchiest, and in my opinion captures the band in top form, in every way. The song is tight, structure-wise; the lyrics are as good as anything Tim's ever written; and the playing is awesome, especially the guitar-playing .. just brilliant.
Other highlights are "Kiss, Kiss is Getting Old", which sounds like it was AIMED at folks in their mid-thirties (like myself, I could be biased here), "Raging in the Plague Age" and "Slugs in the Shrubs". "Raging" has a great backup refrain, sung by either a boys choir or hired nuns. Or possibly friends of the band. "Slugs" has some great-sounding effects that integrate perfectly with the song .. in fact, both Slugs and Raging would have fit in very well on Cat and the Cobra.
LSF are one of the few rock bands out there that prove rock can still be exciting, intelligent and original. I truly hope they continue on, in whatever way they damn well please.
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