Les Savy Fav, Root For Ruin
Reviewed by: Chris Polley
“This song’s for you – yeah you!” Tim Harrington yelled coarsely at me one Friday night in 2001, his index finger extended like a fleshy scepter as a cheap bright stage light shone on the sweat pouring down his brow. His band Les Savy Fav had finally gotten on the stage just a few songs earlier (around 12:45 a.m.) at a small packed venue in Minneapolis and since I had been up since 7:00 a.m. and had been a college freshman in a strange new city for all of three weeks I was fighting to stay awake as I sat at a railing in the darkness trying to keep my eyes open to watch this band that a new acquaintance had encouraged me to see if I liked The Dismemberment Plan. When he pointed me out for slumping over a bit amongst the rowdy bar crowd as the workhorse band plowed through energetic and mildly abrasive rock songs, I, being the shy loner that I was at the time, was stuck in quite the haze while the band proceeded into their next rendition. Once I got over feeling frozen and the center of attention for all of a split second, however, I started to pay attention more. The song was for me, after all.
And with that quick realization I became smitten. An overweight bald guy with a microphone and an attitude gave me my second wind and suddenly my posture improved, my senses heightened, and I began to take in all of the awesomeness that was Les Savy Fav while on their tour for 2001’s strong effort Go Forth. I was so giddy with excitement by the end of their set, after drums were bashed into oblivion, and guitars emitted blanketed waves of reverb and distortion, and nasally melodies flowed through my head, that I immediately booked it to the band’s merch table. All ready to buy the newest record available, the same aforementioned acquaintance found and stopped me before I could make my purchase. After he made sure I was as mesmerized as he was (actually as I type this I’m realizing he very well could have seen when the lead singer made an example out of me and that would even more explain the Joker-esque smile on his face at the time), he recommended I buy the 1999 full-length The Cat and the Cobra if I wanted something more akin to their live show. And because I was an impressionable 17-year-old, I blindly accepted this man’s advice and did as I was told.
“Sleepless in Silverlake”
To be clear, I made the right decision in following this quasi-stranger’s suggestion. I absorbed that record like no one’s business. I walked around campus with a newly minted glint of anger in my soul and rambunctious apathy in my heart as I consumed the post-punk riffs and angular rhythms through and through. It sounded dirty as hell and yet it was also poppy and catchy. It came across as completely nihilist and yet it was full of fervor and life in its vocal energy and instrumental wildness. Later I listened to Go Forth just to see if I was missing anything and while there are indeed a couple of solid jams on it, I very immediately understood what the dude with the smile meant. Les Savy Fav is one of those bands constantly trying to live up to the hype of their live shows. They prove to the world inside a 40-minute set that they are superhuman, that they have the stamina of a thousand Olympians, even though they look like and are completely average middle-class intelligentsia from Rhode Island. So as you can imagine, this is pretty hard to translate onto tape.
But The Cat and the Cobra did this somehow. Maybe it was because the band hadn’t quite grasped a sense of production values yet or maybe it was conscious effort and they had resources at their disposal that they chose not to use in one session that they then decided to employ later for experimental reasons or curiosity’s sake. Whatever the case may have been, the band without much notice left the recording scene after that 2001 release that might have not sold as many copies but still encouraged people to check out their legendary performance on a local tour date. Then in 2007, likely with some motivation stemming from Pitchfork’s constant references of LSF in basically any review of a record that had any tangential connection to their inimitable blend of brash and melodic, in addition to Harrington basically starting a run of non-music-related gigs with the web site, from hosting shows to appearing in online promotional videos, they finally came back with an LP called Let’s Stay Friends.
“Let’s Get Out of Here”
In a word, it was flat. It sounded like Les Savy Fav, to be sure, but it just didn’t grab anyone by the balls like we all though the band was only capable of. In fact, even Go Forth, the album that seemingly made the band go into a faux-hiatus of sorts, had more vim and vigor than this new effort. And Go Forth largely centered on empty-sounding keyboard riffs. It was almost as if they hadn’t heard about or had forgotten about the reason they had gone into recording-hiding in the first place. That, or they were trying to do that whole “let’s get mature” thing, which seems more likely given the album’s awkwardly inviting title, something that definitely doesn’t jive with a band whose live show is more accurately represented by the awesome title The Cat and the Cobra.
Fast-forward three years later and this former LSF fanatic (okay, really just that one album, but whatever; I knew the band’s potential and even while their records didn’t match my opinion of them as a whole, their live shows still did, even as they aged) wasn’t exactly riled up to hear that they had a new album out called Root For Ruin. But to come full circle, I once again had a chance (this time digital) encounter with an acquaintance who recommended that I check out the group’s latest offering, especially if I was a fan of their live shows and Cobra. So I did. And while it took a couple songs for it to finally sink in, I slowly but surely felt the goose bumps rise up on my arms and felt as if Tim Harrington was staring straight at me with his furrowed brow all over again and screaming in between panting and catching his breath that yes, this song, nay, this album, was for me.
“Clear Spirits”
Let it be understood: there are no frills anywhere on Ruin. It is straight-ahead driving rock with a peculiar sense of humor and almost aggravating style of forceful dissonance. Better yet, the band once again doesn’t care that it partakes in this vivid oscillation between beauty and noise. What it does care about is shaking one’s body to the core. A song may skitter for a bit and let you get a chance to regain your footing, but just wait for the chorus, or with the quieter overall songs, the bridge, and suddenly you’ll get a jolt right in your ears. For those that remember and cherish LSF for their live shows and older material, it will be a familiar and almost warm jolt, but for anyone else getting in late on the game, it will be a righteous re-alignment of the senses.
Actually, on second thought, if Pitchfork is indeed the vital cultural institution that many claim it is, maybe it will be a warm and familiar jolt for others as well, as I’d like to think this kind of unbridled cataclysmic partying that LSF has become known for has had its fair share of impact on subsequent rock bands that show that one can give a fuck but make it sound like nothing else matters but rocking it all out through the PA. This is the kind of euphoric tradition of indie rock, whether it’s punk, noise, pop, or in between: shake some bodies and make yourself heard. That’s how you wake up and get that second wind while you feel the world dissipating in the background.